***************************************************************** 03/07/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.56 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] USA's Bolton says Iranian nuclear plant can be 'taken 2 Cheney: Iran faces 'meaningful consequences' 3 [southnews] US dismisses talk of compromise on Iran 4 [southnews] Pakistan opposes US military strike on Iran 5 [southnews] Israel conducts activities against Iran in N. Iraq 6 [NYTr] Russian move on Iran challenges EU unity 7 [NYTr] Shotgun Cheney Threatens Iran 8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Seeking Compensation From IAEA 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Offers to Suspend Uranium Enrichment 10 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Firm Against Iran Nuclear Enrichment 11 Guardian Unlimited: Summary Box: Iran Faces Hard Line From U.S. 12 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Says U.N. Taking Up Iran Dispute 13 Guardian Unlimited: China Urges Iran to Cooperate Over Nukes 14 BBC: Iran demands nuclear compensation 15 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Says Iranian Enrichment Unacceptable 16 AFP: China calls on Iran to work with UN nuclear watchdog 17 AFP: US stays firm in opposition to Iran nuclear enrichment - 18 Guardian Unlimited: Cheney Says U.S. Won't Let Iran Get Nukes 19 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA Hopes for Deal on Iran Nuke Program 20 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Needs Help From Russia on Iran 21 ITAR-TASS: US: Consultations with DPRK unrelated to six-way talks. 22 [NYTr] Bush's India Deal Makes US a Nuclear Proliferator 23 US: [NYTr] Dr. Strangelove is Our President 24 US: Congress Can Stop the U.S.-India Nuclear Proliferation 25 NO SURRENDER DOCTRINE --Russian offer ruffles West 26 US: Bellona: USA to allocate $119m for hydrogen vehicles development 27 RIA Novosti: Russia, U.S. could conclude nuclear agreements 28 US: reviewjournal.com: ONLINE GUY: They're podcasters hear 'em roar, 29 AFP: India says nuclear deterrent capabilities intact despite US pac 30 IEER: Statement on the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal 31 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Campaigning for U.S.-India Nuke Deal 32 Guardian Unlimited: Drumbeat sounds familiar 33 Bellona: European Union intends to develop renewable sources of ener 34 Independent: Brussels set to unveil ¬1 trillion energy plan NUCLEAR REACTORS 35 [NYTr] UK: Brit Plan for New Civil Nuke Pgm Appraoches Meltdown 36 US: NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting Notice 37 Guardian Unlimited: Don't build nuclear plants, green advisers tell 38 Daily Yomiuri: Chernobyl accident scars vivid 20 years on 39 Bellona: Is there an alternative to a new Leningrad Nuclear Power Pl 40 BBC: Chapelcross comes to a crossroads 41 BBC: Scotland 'should get nuclear say' 42 BBC: Who should take nuclear decision? 43 Energy Business Review: Bulgarian power plant deal would make long t 44 US: Rutland Herald: Vibration puts hold on Yankee power increase 45 Independent: Plan for new nuclear programme approaches meltdown afte 46 US: Greenpeace: Nuclear Power: Boom or Bust? 47 US: Greenpeace: Energy Crisis Remedy Unveiled 48 US: ICT: Prairie Island seeks nuclear waste disposal 49 TheStar.com: Nuclear energy realistic solution 50 US: Tennessean: TVA may have partner, a first, in building reactor - 51 Deccan Herald: Future reactors may come under IAEA scanner - 52 Korea Times: KEPCO Strengthening Global Reach 53 UPI: Japanese nuke plant dies on drawing board 54 US: Vermont Guardian: Feds put Vermont Yankee uprate on hold due to NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 55 [du-list] False positive DU test results from UMRC 56 US: Deseret News: Thyroid woes a long-term risk after exposure to 57 Trinidad News: Exposure to Mayaro uranium canister could be harmful, 58 US: UPI: U. of Chicago cited for nuke safety snafus NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 59 Sydney Morning Herald: Land council relaxed about nuclear waste - 60 US: Bradenton Herald: Lockheed gets more time 61 US: Deseret News: Work with Goshutes, USU historian says 62 US: Deseret News: Clean Harbors pursuing nuclear waste option 63 reviewjournal.com: Energy secretary's statement retracted by White H 64 US: CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Nuclear material shipments are subject to som 65 US: Shoreline Beacon: Radioactive waste facility to expand to handle 66 Kyiv Post: U.S. businessman hopes for Ukrainian approval for nuclear 67 Daily Herald: Waste raises questions of tribes' sovereignty 68 US: Las Vegas Business Press: UNLV scientists work on nuclear waste PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 69 AP Wire: Energy Department criticizes nuclear safety at Argonne Nati 70 Hanford News: Ex-Energy chief Abraham appointed to Areva board 71 Hanford News: Audit: Better coordination needed on research in radia 72 Hanford News: DOE seeks ideas for razing reactor 73 Hanford News: State seeks to join Hanford suit 74 Paducah Sun: USEC won’t submit in-lieu-of fees - ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] USA's Bolton says Iranian nuclear plant can be 'taken Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 19:52:31 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit The Guardian via Info Clearing House - Mar 6, 2006 http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12215.htm US envoy hints at strike to stop Iran - Bolton says nuclear plant can be 'taken out' - UN agency meets to send report to security council By Julian Borger Washington 03/06/06 "The Guardian"--The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has told British MPs that military action could bring Iran's nuclear programme to a halt if all diplomatic efforts fail. The warning came ahead of a meeting today of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which will forward a report on Iran's nuclear activities to the UN security council. The council will have to decide whether to impose sanctions, an issue that could split the international community as policy towards Iraq did before the invasion. Yesterday the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said: "Nobody has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions of some kind." However the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, visiting Washington last week, encountered sharply different views within the Bush administration. The most hawkish came from Mr Bolton. According to Eric Illsley, a Labour committee member, the envoy told the MPs: "They must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means. We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down." It is unusual for an administration official to go into detail about possible military action against Iran. To produce significant amounts of enriched uranium, Iran would have to set up a self-sustaining cycle of processes. Mr Bolton appeared to be suggesting that cycle could be hit at its most vulnerable point. The CIA appears to be the most sceptical about a military solution and shares the state department's position, say British MPs, in suggesting gradually stepping up pressure on the Iranians. The Pentagon position was described, by the committee chairman, Mike Gapes, as throwing a demand for a militarily enforced embargo into the security council "like a hand grenade - and see what happens". Yesterday Mr Bolton reiterated his hardline stance. In a speech to the annual convention of the American-Israel public affairs committee, the leading pro-Israel US lobbyists, he said: "The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve ... we must be prepared to rely on comprehensive solutions and use all the tools at our disposal to stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses." The IAEA referred Iran to the security council on February 4, but a month's grace was left for diplomatic initiatives. By yesterday, those appeared exhausted. A meeting of European and Iranian negotiators broke down on Friday over Tehran's insistence that even if Russia was allowed to enrich Iran's uranium, Iran would enrich small amounts for research. Iran says that it needs enrichment for electricity. According to Time magazine, the US plans to present the security council with evidence that Iran is designing a crude nuclear bomb, like the one dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. The evidence will be in the form of blueprints that the US said were found on a laptop belonging to an Iranian nuclear engineer, and obtained by the CIA in 2004. However, any such presentation will bring back memories of a similar briefing in February 2003 in which Colin Powell, then US secretary of state, laid out evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which proved not to exist. While the US and Britain keep a united front over Iraq in the UN security council, there are clear differences over Iran. Britain has ruled out a military option if diplomatic pressure fails. The US has not. There is no serious consideration of large-scale use of ground forces, but there are disagreements in the administration over whether air strikes and small-scale special forces operations could be effective in halting or slowing down Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme. Some believe Iran has secret facilities that are buried so deep underground as to be impenetrable. They argue that the US could never be certain whether or not it had destroyed Iran's "capability". ) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 2 Cheney: Iran faces 'meaningful consequences' Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 16:55:55 -0600 (CST) News Update from Citizens for Legitimate Government 07 March 2006 http://www.legitgov.org/ http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news Cheney: Iran faces 'meaningful consequences' --Vice pResident warns Tehran of pursuing uranium-enriching ambitions 07 Mar 2006 Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons and faces "meaningful consequences" if it persists in defying the international community, Vice pResident Dick Cheney said Tuesday. [Yes, maybe he can take their leaders hunting with him. Meanwhile, look who's talking about defying the international community? Do the words "irony" and "hypocrite" mean anything to you, DICK?] Address to receive newsletter: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries. lrp/mdr CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, General Manager. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. Copyright ) 2006, Citizens For Legitimate Government . All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 [southnews] US dismisses talk of compromise on Iran Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 01:23:13 -0600 (CST) The US government says it is mulling all its options - including the military one - in response to an IAEA report that Iran has begun enriching uranium on a small scale and is slowly building up its enrichment capabilities. Unless Iran executes a dramatic about-face and suspends all its nuclear activities, the UN Security Council will intervene "quite actively", a senior State Department official said on Monday. US dismisses talk of compromise on Iran By Barry Schweid in Washington | AP Tuesday, 07 March , 2006, 08:24 Unless Iran executes a dramatic about-face and suspends all its nuclear activities, the UN Security Council will intervene "quite actively", a senior State Department official said on Monday. The message to Iran is that it has "crossed the international red line" and engaged in unacceptable enrichment activity "and there must be a UN Security Council process to deal with that", Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said. Burns did not say what the United States would ask the Security Council to do. While the Bush administration takes a stern line towards Tehran, it might not be able to persuade other nations to impose economic or other penalties on Iran. The UN nuclear watchdog agency, which voted to refer the dispute to the Security Council, will reaffirm its stance this week in Vienna, Austria, "unless Iran does a dramatic about-face and suspends all of its nuclear activities", Burns said at the Heritage Foundation, a private research group. His remarks followed a State Department spokesman's dismissal of reports that an eleventh-hour compromise might be struck over Iran's nuclear program. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, said at his agency's Vienna headquarters on Monday that the council might not have to consider Iran's actions. Talks between Moscow and Tehran have focused on shifting Iran's fuel enrichment activities to Russia. The United States has long spearheaded a campaign to haul Iran before the Security Council, which has the power to impose economic or other sanctions. There was no hint of optimism at the State Department about the latest efforts to defuse the issue, which ElBaradei said he hoped could produce a resolution in a week. "I am not aware of any specific proposals or any specific ideas that would require or force any kind of delay in Security Council action," spokesman Tom Casey said. Casey also downplayed a new twist to the Russian proposal. Under it, the UN atomic watchdog agency would set a level of small-scale uranium enrichment that Iran would be allowed to conduct on its own soil as part of an attempt to keep Iran from using the fuel for nuclear weapons, said the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "You can't be just a little pregnant," Casey said of the US attitude towards small-scale uranium work by Iran. The UN's atomic energy agency voted last month to refer the Iran dispute to the Security Council. "There is no obstacle to that discussion being taken up and we certainly believe that will happen shortly," Casey said. North Korea took a civilian nuclear program and quickly turned it into a bomb-making program, Casey said. The process of bringing Iran before the Security Council has been delayed several times. The European Union attempted to negotiate with Iran with the aim of halting the program in exchange for economic concessions. Then Russia came up with its enrichment proposal. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was due to have dinner in Washington on Monday evening with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and then meet on Tuesday with President Bush and Rice. On Wednesday, Lavrov is due to meet in New York with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. On his way to Washington, Lavrov stopped in Ottawa for talks with Canadian officials. Russian news agencies quoted him as saying Russia's proposal to shift Iran's uranium enrichment to Russia remains on the negotiating table, but Iran must suspend enrichment on Iranian territory. In Vienna, headquarters for the nuclear watchdog group, ElBaradei said the Council might not have to explore Iran's actions. "I am still very much hopeful that in the next week an agreement could be reached," he said._________________________________________ US warns Iran of consequences of nuclear ambitions By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent Reuters Sun Mar 5, 3:39 PM ET The United States on Sunday warned that Iran faced "painful consequences" if it continued sensitive nuclear activities and said the problem would become increasingly difficult to resolve if the international community did not confront it. Ahead of what could be a crucial international meeting on Iran on Monday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton reaffirmed that the United States will use "all tools at our disposal" to thwart Iran's nuclear program and is already "beefing up defensive measures" to do so. "The Iran regime must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences," he told 4,500 delegates to the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel U.S. lobbying group. Monday's meeting of the 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency governing board is expected to take stock of Iran's continued defiance of U.S. and European demands to end sensitive weapons-related uranium enrichment activity and then hand the case over to the UN Security Council. The United States is discussing a 30- to 60-day deadline for Tehran to halt its nuclear program and cooperate with international inspectors or face intensified pressure in the security council, a U.S. official told Reuters. Iran on Sunday again threatened to begin large-scale nuclear enrichment if the case is taken up by the security council. Bolton said Iran poses a "comprehensive threat" as a state-sponsor of terrorism and a nuclear aspirant, and so "we must be prepared to ... use all the tools at our disposal to stop the threat." 'LONGER WE WAIT ... HARDER IT WILL BECOME TO SOLVE' "The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve," he warned. Bolton reaffirmed that Washington does not see the security council moving quickly to impose sanctions on Iran. Veto-wielding members Russia and China have made clear their reluctance. But he said many other governments have begun to speak publicly of sanctions, implying they may take action outside the security council. The United States has had sweeping sanctions on Iran since after the 1979 Iranian revolution, but it is looking at ways to further use its Proliferation Security Initiative to deny Iran materials it needs for its nuclear program, Bolton said. The United States and key allies, led by the European Union trio of Britain, France and Germany, are convinced Iran is trying to produce a nuclear weapon, but Tehran insists it is only interested in civilian nuclear energy. Former chief UN weapons inspector David Kay, who also spoke at the AIPAC conference, discussed the limits of weapons inspections and said a conclusive judgment about Iran's program may only come too late, after it conducts a weapons test. The IAEA is expected to weigh a report on Monday by the IAEA chief saying Iran has ignored a February 4 resolution urging it to shelve uranium-enrichment work to ease the crisis. Instead, Iran is vacuum-testing 20 centrifuges, which convert uranium into fuel for power plants or, if highly purified, bombs, the report said. Iran also plans to install 3,000 centrifuges later this year in a push to "industrial scale" enrichment, according to the IAEA report. The IAEA board voted on February 4 to report Iran to the security council, but on the condition the world body would not flex its muscle at least until after Monday's session. If the security council did not act in a timely manner, Bolton said, the council's credibility would be damaged. __________________________________________ Iran may use oil weapon if crisis worsens The News International, Pakistan TEHRAN: Iran will not freeze sensitive nuclear research work even if it is hauled before the UN Security Council, the Islamic republics top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said on Sunday. Speaking on the eve of a meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog that could prompt Security Council action, he asserted Iran was not intending to use oil as a weapon in the dispute or quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but he warned this could change if the crisis worsened. "We have no interest in using oil as a weapon because we respect the psychological security of the international community," Larijani told a press conference, repeating Irans position that it would not initiate such a move. "But naturally if they change the situation that will automatically be affected too," he warned. "Research and development is in our national interest and Iran will not go back on that," he maintained. "Going to the Security Council will certainly not make Iran go back on research and development," Larijani said, adding that Tehran would instead retaliate to such a move by pressing ahead with full-scale uranium enrichment work. International concerns are centered on Irans bid to master uranium enrichment, even via small-scale research. Tehran says it only wants to make reactor fuel, but the process can be extended to the fissile core of a nuclear weapon and the West is determined to prevent Iran acquiring this know-how. "We want them to treat our case logically. We want them to give us time and keep it within the IAEA," Larijani said of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose 35-nation board is to begin meeting in Vienna on Monday. He said Iran was only prepared to hold off on large-scale enrichment. "We are ready to remove concerns and we accept to have a timetable for enrichment." The United States and the European powers, however, have already said that such a concession does not go far enough and want to see Iran halt all work related to enrichment and show greater cooperation with the IAEAs now three-year-old investigation. With Security Council action likely, western powers have been mulling what pressure including possible sanctions could be used against Iran if it refuses to return to a moratorium on sensitive nuclear work. But Iran, OPECs second biggest producer, has consistently warned that any sanctions will have worse consequences for the rest of the world. "We have no interest in using oil as a weapon because we respect the psychological security of the international community," Larijani said. He later added that "sanctions will not affect us much, and some solutions have been thought about for those which would affect us". As for abandoning the NPT, Larijani repeated last months warning from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran could take such a step if provoked. "The Islamic republic of Iran does not have this intention, except if they do something that forces us into an emergency situation," he said, but was nevertheless at pains to stress that "we dont have such a plan". Larijani blamed the so-called EU-3, which had last year proposed a package of trade and diplomatic incentives in return for Iran accepting a moratorium on nuclear fuel work. "It was so faulty. It had nothing," Larijani said of the moribund European offer. "Thats why we were forced to take another path. If the Europeans had not broken the negotiations, we could have come to an agreement," he said, adding that "if a miracle happens it should be from the European side because we have shown flexibility". http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/mar2006-daily/06-03-2006/main/main5.htm The archives of South News can be found at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ ***************************************************************** 4 [southnews] Pakistan opposes US military strike on Iran Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 01:25:53 -0600 (CST) "Pakistan's view is that there should not be any military intervention and we would certainly not be party to any such action," Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told BBC television late Monday during a visit to London. Pakistan opposed to any military action against Iran over nuclear program AFP 30 minutes ago Pakistan would oppose any military action taken by its ally the United States against Iran over its disputed nuclear program, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said. "Pakistan's view is that there should not be any military intervention and we would certainly not be party to any such action," Aziz told BBC television late Monday during a visit to London. The BBC had asked him about Washington's refusal to rule out military action against Iran's nuclear program which US and European diplomats fear may be used for nuclear weapons. Iran insists it is peaceful. He said Pakistan has always supported a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Iran's uranium enrichment program, especially through the forum of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. "We think Iran should not proliferate. We're against production of any nuclear weapons in the region. We think Iran does have the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under IAEA safeguards and guidelines," he said. "We also feel negotiation is the way to go and we oppose any armed conflict in the region to settle the matter," he said. "We remain cautiously optimistic that they (negotiations) will produce results," he said. Unlike Iran, Pakistan was entitled to build a nuclear bomb once India set off such a weapon in 1974, he said. "Once this happened ... we had to create a minimal credible deterrence to ensure peace in south Asia. In Iran's case, we believe this is not necessary," he said. Aziz was in London for a two-day "Asia 2015: Promoting Growth, Ending Poverty" meeting, which gathered some 150 delegates from the worlds of politics, business and civil society. __________________________________ Iran Might Face Tangible Consequences if Nuclear Threat Persists Solutions will be more difficult if action is delayed, U.N. envoy Bolton says Washington -- If Iran's government continues seeking nuclear weapons, it will face "tangible and painful consequences," warned John Bolton, U.S. representative to the United Nations. "Given the comprehensive nature of the threat, we must be prepared to rely on comprehensive solutions and use all tools at our disposal to stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses," Bolton told participants at a policy conference sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee March 5 in Washington. Bolton said Iran's pattern of diplomatic "doublespeak" with European and Russian negotiators over its nuclear program reveals the regime's true intent to develop nuclear weapons (See related article.) He said it is critical for the matter to come before the U.N. Security Council to help mobilize international public opinion. "Alternatively," the ambassador said, "if Iran follows the course of Libya and makes the strategic decision that the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the sponsorship of terror and the oppression of its people makes it less, not more secure, then relations with the outside world can improve dramatically." Bolton's speech came a day before the International Atomic Energy Agency meets to forward its latest findings on Iran's nuclear activities to the U.N. Security Council (See related article.) In his speech, Bolton also discussed U.S. efforts to counter the Iranian regime's sponsorship of terrorists in the region and U.S. initiatives to support freedom and human rights in Iran as a means to counter Iran's repression of domestic political opposition. "The longer we wait to confront the [nuclear] threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve," he said. For additional information on U.S. policy, see Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Following is the transcript of the ambassador's remarks: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPEECH BY THE HONORABLE JOHN R. BOLTON PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS DELIVERED TO THE AIPAC POLICY CONFERENCE WASHINGTON D.C. MARCH 5, 2006 THE GROWING THREAT OF THE IRANIAN REGIME INTRODUCTION Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, I would like to thank you for inviting me here to address this year's Policy Conference. Your work to help to raise awareness and inform debates on issues vital to the national security of both the United States and Israel is a major and important contribution. No doubt some of the issues you will be tackling here over the next two days are amongst the most seemingly intractable, but that is all the more reason why they are the most appropriate, indeed crucial ones to discuss. The work you do to help to promote the peace and prosperity of Israel and to strengthen the ties that bind our nations helps to cement our rock-solid alliance -- one that will never allow the state of Israel, as some have suggested, to be "wiped off the map". I wish that I could stand before you here today and say that in the year 2006, we have not observed some very troubling developments. Sadly, it seems that we have traveled back in time in some ways: back to a time when a world leader trumpets the call of war and openly calls for the destruction of the state of Israel; back to a time when this same leader brazenly and with shocking ignorance questions the horrors that unfolded with the Holocaust. While Mr. Ahmadi-nejad, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has clearly failed his lessons in history, indulge me a moment if you will to offer him up at least one lesson on current events: our commitment to Israel's security and the alliance between the United States and Israel are unshakeable. The work AIPAC has done to forge and strengthen those ties should serve as a powerful reminder to any leader now or in the future that, simply put, there will be no destruction of the state of Israel. While there is no doubt that the question of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is first and foremost on people's minds, and rightly so, the problem runs deeper. As Secretary Rice recently noted in her testimony on Capitol Hill, "we have a comprehensive view of the threat that Iran poses." It is not just that the regime is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but that it is also the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and is working to destabilize the region to advance its ideological ambitions. It is not just the external threat that worries us, but the fact that Iranian government oppresses its own people, denying them basic liberties and human rights. Given the comprehensive nature of the threat, we must be prepared to rely on comprehensive solutions and use all tools at our disposal to stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses. It was with this in mind that Secretary Rice noted that, "The United States will actively confront the aggressive policies of this Iranian regime. And at the same time, we are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country." IRAN'S PURSUIT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS No doubt the primary threat that Israel and the United States face from the Iran regime is its clear and unrelenting drive to acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver those weapons. For years the international community has been hearing of the mounting and voluminous evidence -- confirmed by IAEA inspectors -- of Iran's deception and denial in violation of its treaty obligations with the IAEA and international community. Through intense diplomatic work, the IAEA Board of Governors has finally reported Iran's failure to allay concerns about the nature of its nuclear program to the United Nations Security Council, a step it would have been fully justified in taking several years ago, but that was postponed in the hope that Iran would choose cooperation over confrontation. Thus far, this hope has been in vain. I find it deeply ironic that the United States is so often accused of aggressive unilateralism when we have been the ones pursuing multilateral efforts through the IAEA, including in conjunction with the EU3 and the Russians, and now the United Nations. Following the conclusion of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting that will begin tomorrow in Vienna, Director General ElBaradei will convey to the Security Council his latest report on Iran's nuclear activities. The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve. This is not to say that we do not support the ongoing diplomatic efforts by the British, French, and Germans -- or EU-3 as we call them -- and the Russians, but we must not ignore Tehran's refusal to address the concerns of the international community. For over two years, the EU-3 has engaged in active diplomacy with Tehran and presented one reasonable proposal after another. The mullahs in Iran accepted these agreements reached in Paris and then unilaterally broke the agreement by resuming uranium conversion work last fall. In the case of the ongoing negotiations with the Russians, we are observing double-speak on the part of the Iranian regime. With one voice, they are saying that they welcome the discussions with the Russian Federation and view it as a possible solution to the impasse. With another voice, though, they are flatly refusing to consider the core condition that Russia, the EU-3 and we would require -- namely that Iran give up access to the technology and materials that would enable them to have indigenous capability -- a nuclear fuel cycle -- to develop nuclear weapons. The government of Tehran's trumpeting of its right to a civil peaceful nuclear program is a canard. The Russian proposal enables the Iranians to reap the benefits of civil nuclear power while addressing concerns that they are really pursuing nuclear weapons. The EU3 proposal even opened the possibility of technical cooperation on nuclear power. As the President has said, we do not oppose Iran enjoying the benefits of peaceful, safeguarded nuclear energy. It is clear, however, that Iran's pursuit of the nuclear fuel cycle is neither peaceful nor for nuclear energy. Frankly, Iran's track record justifies this fear. As the resolution passed by the IAEA Board of Governors notes, there have been "many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with its NPT Safeguards Agreement." Put differently, with rights come responsibilities -- responsibilities that Iran has not come close to meeting. It is unclear exactly how events will play out once the Security Council takes up the agenda item of Iran. As a number of officials, myself included, have noted earlier, there are a range of options available. Letting it languish, however, is not one of them. Failure by the Security Council to act on this matter would be a highly detrimental abrogation of the duties it is charged with under the UN Charter. Forgive my moment of facetiousness when dealing with a matter literally of life and death, but if the pursuit of nuclear weapons by a state with a leader who calls for another to be "wiped off the map" is not considered a threat to international peace and security, I daresay one must ask -- what is? The Security Council should take due note that failure to act in a timely manner and with a seriousness of purpose will do lasting damage to the credibility of the Council. The Security Council will likely take a graduated approach to dealing with this issue, but it is critical that we use the Council to help mobilize international public opinion. Rest assured, though, we are not relying on the Security Council as the only tool in our toolbox to address this problem. In addition to our diplomatic efforts at the IAEA, the UN Security Council, and bilaterally, we are beefing up our defensive measures to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat. As Secretary Rice has stated, "In conjunction with our multilateral diplomacy, the United States will develop sensible measures, security measures, including looking further at our Proliferation Security Initiative and those who cooperate with us to try and deny to regimes like Iran, North Korea and others the materials for covert programs that threaten the international system." This combined pressure, we hope, will persuade the Iranian regime to make the strategic decision to forego their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Unlike North Korea, the Iranian people have many ties to the world, whether economic, social, or cultural. We must use those ties to help to raise the pressure on the Iranian regime. The United States already imposes numerous bilateral sanctions on Iran, and while it is too soon to begin sanctions by the Security Council, it is noteworthy that many other governments around the world have begun to include the word "sanctions" in their discourse when discussing Iran. The Iran regime must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences. Alternatively, if Iran follows the course of Libya and makes the strategic decision that the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the sponsorship of terror and the oppression of its people makes it less, not more secure, then relations with the outside world can improve dramatically. Thus, the question of how far the Security Council will go, and whether it eventually will have to consider the imposition of sanctions, or the extent to which we need to develop defensive measures against Iran, is really a question for Mr. Ahmadi-nejad and the Iranian regime to answer. PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN IRAN Sadly, the signals coming from the new President -- note I did not say freely elected President -- are not encouraging; indeed, they are outright hostile. There is no doubt that the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran's regime has taken on greater salience given the behavior that these autocrats have displayed in other regards. Iran has long been a rogue state as the world's leading state sponsor and funder of terrorism. The "election" of Ahmadi-nejad has only deepened the Iran regime's isolation and heightened tensions in the region. I must admit that it is somewhat surreal to hear coming out the mouth of a world leader rhetoric that we thought had been relegated to the dustbin of history. It's not just conferences or sponsoring cartoon competitions calling into question the Holocaust, it is their overt and increasingly vocal support of terrorist organizations that is profoundly disturbing. To see the Iranian President go to Damascus and hold a summit meeting with leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the leaders of Syria can not but raise considerable concern about his intentions. Let there be no misunderstanding, though: as President Bush and Secretary Rice made clear, since September 11th, the U.S. has been a nation at war, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel and others in the region in this fight against terrorism. It is not just a question for the United States and Israel to consider, however. Obviously, the threat that Iran poses to Israel is palpably clear, but it is not just Israel that is threatened. Iran continues to actively support forces that would tear Lebanon apart. And we continue to observe an ongoing pattern on the part of the Iran regime to interfere with our efforts to support the democratic transition in Iraq. While Iran used to view the regime of Saddam Hussein as a threat to its security -- they now have a different, and frankly, far more dangerous foe -- democracy. Iran is not like North Korea where the populace has little access to outside information. The Iranian people are all too aware that the Iraqis were able to vote for candidates who did not have to pass litmus tests by a council of Mullahs. For it is the people of Iran that our combined efforts must work together to bolster. As Secretary Rice noted, "the United States wishes to reach out to the Iranian people and support their desire to realize their own freedom and to secure their own democratic and human rights. The Iranian people should know that the United States fully supports their aspirations for a freer, better future." The U.S. has an ongoing and active campaign to support the cause of freedom and human rights in Iran. I am pleased to note, too, that we are devoting more resources to this effort. The Administration has requested $75 million in supplemental funding in 2006 to support democracy in Iran. This is up from the $10 million we used last year to develop support networks for Iranian reformers, political dissidents and human rights activists. Secretary Rice also recently testified before Congress that she intends to notify it of a request to reprogram additional funding in this regard. These funds would be targeted to a variety of projects to increase our support for the development of civil society in Iran. Examples include improving our radio broadcasting and satellite television broadcasts. We also intend to support Internet and other efforts to reach the Iranian public with $5 million in funding for public diplomacy. We will also support the development of independent Farsi television and radio. We are working to build other bridges as well. We are working with the Treasury Department to overcome U.S. regulatory restrictions to allow the U.S. Government to make grants to nongovernmental organizations for democracy promotion activities in Iran. We want to expand our educational exchanges with the young people of Iran who have never experienced democracy. At the highpoint at the end of 1970s, in 1979, 51,000 Iranians studied in the United States. That figure shrunk to only 2,231 in 2004. As Secretary Rice noted, "We must change this and we will and we are beginning a new effort to dramatically increase the number of Iranians who can come to study in America, the number of Iranian professionals who wish to visit. I've said on a number of occasions that I've read that it is forbidden in some quarters to play Beethoven and Mozart in Tehran; we hope that Iranians can play it in New York or in Los Angeles." CONCLUSION For several years, President Bush has made clear that the nexus between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction is the primary threat to international peace and security facing the world today. Unfortunately, the developments in Iran, particularly over the course of the past year, only reinforce this view. While September 11th was a wake-up call for many here in the United States, we know that Israel has been receiving those painful calls now for decades. Whether it was wars, suicide bombings, hijackings or kidnappings, the constant threat that the state of Israel has been under serves as a painful reminder that we must remain vigilant. I wish that I could stand before you today and suggest that the threat is lower today than it was before. I cannot do so in good conscience. I know that over the next few days you have assembled an unprecedently qualified group of individuals to discuss the threat that Iran poses to Israel, the region, and indeed, international peace and security. I am deeply humbled and honored to have been invited to address you here today at your opening session and I look forward to hearing from you and the results of this conference. I sometimes find it an odd question because to me the answer is so strikingly simple, but I have been asked before why I remain so strongly committed to the protection, preservation and prosperity of Israel. My answer is straightforward: unlike Mr. Ahmadi-nejad, I know my history. Whether from school, or more poignantly and heart-breakingly, from the stories of survivors of the Holocaust, I know what can happen when we turn a blind eye to tyranny, whether it manifests itself as fascism or, in this case, as totalitarianism. Many of you here in this room are responsible for helping me, indeed all Americans, to understand this undeniable truth. But know that I will do what I can to continue to fight anti-Semitism in whatever form it takes, and wherever it happens, including at the United Nations. As it turns out, and as you well know, my current position lends itself well to such a fight. Your unrelenting and constant support, though, has been indispensable in our mutual fight for what we cherish most -- freedom and democracy. For that, I thank you. The archives of South News can be found at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ ***************************************************************** 5 [southnews] Israel conducts activities against Iran in N. Iraq Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 17:36:32 -0600 (CST) Report: IDF forces operating in Iran La Nueva Cuba March 5, 2006 JPost Staff and AP Tel Aviv Israel Israeli special forces are working in Iran to locate the precise sites at which Iran continues to enrich uranium, a British newspaper reported Sunday. According to the Sunday Times article, the Israeli team is based in northern Iraq and has the support of the United States. Iran warned Sunday that it will will resume large-scale uranium enrichment if it is referred to the UN Security Council. "If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the UN Security Council, (large scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed," Larijani told a packed news conference. "If they (the US and its allies) want to use force, we will pursue our own path," he said. The International Atomic Energy Agency will meet in Vienna, Austria, Monday to discuss Iran's nuclear program. On Saturday, the US reportedly decided to present a 30-day ultimatum to the UN Security Council, calling on Iran to cease its nuclear development. The Washington Post reported, however, that the US would not request further economic sanctions on Iran. Iran and the European Union inched toward a compromise Friday that diplomats said would allow Tehran to run a scaled-down version of a uranium enrichment program with potential for misuse to develop atomic weapons. While Iran insists that its nuclear program is not intended to produce weapons, the Israeli security establishment has taken steps to assure that Israel can defend itself against an Iranian attacks. On Thursday, a senior IDF officer told The Jerusalem Post Israel's Arrow 2 anti-ballistic missile system is capable of intercepting and destroying any Iranian missiles, even were they to carry nuclear warheads. While Iran is Israel's most serious strategic and existential threat, the country, he said confidently, was sufficiently protected by the Arrow, which plays a major role in maintaining Israel's protective envelope. "We will shoot all of [Iran's missiles] down," he told the Post. "The Arrow knows how to intercept the Shihab missile." Just last year that wasn't the case. Appearing before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Brig.-Gen. Ilan Bitton - head of Israel's Air Defense Forces - said that, while the Arrow was highly effective against the Scud missiles that make up most of Syria's arsenal, it "needed improvement" to face the challenges posed by Iran's Shihab-3. Improvements were recently made to the Arrow, the officer said, explaining the new confidence, and it was now able to detect even a missile carrying a split warhead and armed with decoys meant to fool the anti-missile system. Asked about the danger of the Arrow taking out a non-conventional or nuclear missile over Israel, the officer said that the incoming missile would be destroyed at such a high altitude that it would disperse and destroy its payload without causing any casualties. "There is constant pressure to always stay a step ahead of our adversaries," the officer said. "They developed decoys on their missiles and we developed ways to detect the decoys and to be able to accurately strike the incoming threat." http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-06-03-520.htm ___________________________________ Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, and Sarah Baxter Washington The Sunday Times December 11, 2005 London ISRAELS armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed. The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations. Irans stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern. The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was losing patience with Iran. A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: What next? That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said. Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the point of no return after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years. Israel and not only Israel cannot accept a nuclear Iran, Sharon warned recently. We have the ability to deal with this and were making all the necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation. The order to prepare for a possible attack went through the Israeli defence ministry to the chief of staff. Sources inside special forces command confirmed that G readiness the highest stage for an operation was announced last week. Gholamreza Aghazadeah, head of the Atomic Organisation of Iran, warned yesterday that his country would produce nuclear fuel. There is no doubt that we have to carry out uranium enrichment, he said. He promised it would not be done during forthcoming talks with European negotiators. But although Iran insists it wants only nuclear energy, Israeli intelligence has concluded it is deceiving the world and has no intention of giving up what it believes is its right to develop nuclear weapons. A massive Israeli intelligence operation has been underway since Iran was designated the top priority for 2005, according to security sources. Cross-border operations and signal intelligence from a base established by the Israelis in northern Iraq are said to have identified a number of Iranian uranium enrichment sites unknown to the the IAEA. Since Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, it has been understood that the lesson is, dont have one site, have 50 sites, a White House source said. If a military operation is approved, Israel will use air and ground forces against several nuclear targets in the hope of stalling Tehrans nuclear programme for years, according to Israeli military sources. It is believed Israel would call on its top special forces brigade, Unit 262 the equivalent of the SAS and the F-15I strategic 69 Squadron, which can strike Iran and return to Israel without refuelling. If we opt for the military strike, said a source, it must be not less than 100% successful. It will resemble the destruction of the Egyptian air force in three hours in June 1967. Aharon Zeevi Farkash, the Israeli military intelligence chief, stepped up the pressure on Iran this month when he warned Israels parliament, the Knesset, that if by the end of March the international community is unable to refer the Iranian issue to the United Nations security council, then we can say the international effort has run its course. The March deadline set for military readiness also stems from fears that Iran is improving its own intelligence-gathering capability. In October it launched its first satellite, the Sinah-1, which was carried by a Russian space launcher. The Iranians space programme is a matter of deep concern to us, said an Israeli defence source. If and when we launch an attack on several Iranian targets, the last thing we need is Iranian early warning received by satellite. Russia last week signed an estimated $1 billion contract its largest since 2000 to sell Iran advanced Tor-M1 systems capable of destroying guided missiles and laser-guided bombs from aircraft. Once the Iranians get the Tor-M1, it will make our life much more difficult, said an Israeli air force source. The installation of this system can be relatively quick and we cant waste time on this one. The date set for possible Israeli strikes on Iran also coincides with Israels general election on March 28, prompting speculation that Sharon may be sabre-rattling for votes. Benjamin Netanyahu, the frontrunner to lead Likud into the elections, said that if Sharon did not act against Iran, then when I form the new Israeli government, well do what we did in the past against Saddams reactor, which gave us 20 years of tranquillity. TEHRAN MINISTER MET MILITANTS BEFORE NEW OFFENSIVE Irans foreign minister met leading figures from three Islamic militant groups to co-ordinate a united front against Israel days before a recent escalation of attacks against Israeli targets shattered fragile ceasefires with Lebanon and the Palestinians, writes Hugh Macleod in Damascus. The minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, held talks with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah in Damascus on November 15. Among those who attended the meeting were Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader, and a deputy leader of Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for last Mondays suicide bombing of a shopping mall in Netanya that killed five Israeli citizens. Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine- General Command, was also present. We all confirmed that what is going on in occupied Palestine is organically connected to what is going on in Iraq, Syria, Iran and Lebanon, said Jibril. Seven days after the talks, Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets and mortars at Israeli targets, sparking the fiercest fighting between the two sides since Israels withdrawal from south Lebanon five years ago. The archives of South News can be found at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ ***************************************************************** 6 [NYTr] Russian move on Iran challenges EU unity Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 12:34:26 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit EU Observer - Mar 7, 2006 http://euobserver.com/?aid=21062&rk=1 Russian move on Iran challenges EU unity By Mark Beunderman A looming compromise on Iran's nuclear programme stemming from the latest Russian proposal has put the unity of the EU3 countries - Britain, France and Germany - to the test, agency reports indicate. A deal ending the dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme appeared to come closer on Monday (6 March) as the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed El Baradei expressed optimism over the Iran dossier. "I am still very much hopeful that in the next week or so an agreement could be reached," Mr El Baradei stated according to Reuters, ahead of the UN nuclear watchdogs meeting in Vienna this week. The new optimism over a diplomatic solution to the dispute is said to have arisen from the latest Russian compromise proposal which would allow Tehran some small-scale nuclear enrichment on its own soil, under IAEA supervision. Under an earlier proposal backed by the US and the EU, Moscow had offered to conduct all uranium enrichment for Iran on its own territory as a safeguard against the risk of Tehran developing an atomic bomb. But Moscows latest plan, which would also see some nuclear activity take place in Iran itself, could divide the west, agency reports indicate. Reuters and AP write that of the three EU states handling the Iran dossier on behalf of the bloc, Germany is cautiously backing the Russian proposal, while the UK and France oppose it together with the US. Germany is the one that "could most live with a pilot enrichment plant in Iran," a European diplomat told Reuters, adding however that Berlin would never allow Tehran to break EU unity in the standoff. A US state department spokesman rebuffed the idea of small-scale enrichment on Iranian soil, saying "You can't be just a little pregnant." Washington is instead pressing for sanctions against Tehran by the UN security council, which might take up the Iran file after this weeks IAEA meeting. The IAEA already referred the Iran nuclear case to the security council last month, but under pressure from veto powers Russia and China it has not taken any action so far. This could change after this weeks hearing by the IAEA of a recent report by Mr El Baradei, which discusses Tehrans insufficient co-operation with IAEA nuclear inspectors among other issues. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 7 [NYTr] Shotgun Cheney Threatens Iran Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 12:34:32 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit MSNBC News Services - Mar 7, 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11681845/from/RSS/ Cheney: Iran faces meaningful consequences U.S., Russia close ranks over Tehran's nuclear program WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney told Iran on Tuesday that enrichment of nuclear fuel on Iranian territory was unacceptable and warned that Tehran would face meaningful consequences if it continued to pursue its nuclear program. The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences, Cheney said in a speech to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table, he said. We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Cheneys comments came as Russia appeared to close ranks with the United States over Tehrans nuclear program. U.S., Russia united on issue In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also warned Iran but shied away from warning of immediate U.N. sanctions after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. At a joint State Department news conference, Lavrov said there was no compromise in sight with Iran. Russia has been negotiating with Iran and has proposed enriching fuel on Russian soil for Iran's energy need. The International Atomic Energy Agency already has referred the Iranian nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council, a move spearheaded by the Bush administration. We will see what is necessary to do in the Security Council, Rice said. She said there was still time for Iran to change its ways. >From the State Department, Rice and Lavrov were headed to the White House for a meeting with President Bush. Earlier in the day, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the U.S. expects the U.N. Security Council to move forward to rebuke Tehran for its disputed nuclear program. IAEA weighs Irans proposal A diplomat in Vienna, Austria where the 35-nation IAEA board is meeting said that Iran is offering to suspend full-scale uranium enrichment for up to two years. The diplomat, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue, said Tehrans offer was made Friday by chief Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani in Moscow in the context of contacts between Iran and Russia on moving Tehrans enrichment program to Russia. The diplomat also said Germany remained open to the proposal, which would allow the Iranians to run 20 uranium-enriching centrifuges domestically while ceding control of large-scale enrichment to Moscow, on Russian soil. But Irans envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Tuesday his country was not prepared to freeze small-scale enrichment. Weve spent a lot on this, said Soltanieh, outside the IAEA board meeting. Seeking a common stance As the board meeting entered its second day, German representatives were meeting with counterparts from France and Britain which both back the Americans in opposing the plan to try to re-establish a common European stance on enrichment, the diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging confidential information, told The Associated Press. A European official in Vienna for the meeting said that ultimately the plan would fail if the Americans opposed it. The dispute, which surfaced in the last few days, was driving a wedge into joint international efforts to wean Iran of all enrichment activity by moving it to Russia, thereby reducing its potential for misuse by Tehran. The original Russian plan that surfaced last year and is backed by the Americans and the European Union, would have stripped the Iranians of all enrichment potential. ElBaradei still hopeful The diplomats said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei backed the plan. On Monday, he told reporters a deal on Irans suspect nuclear program could be only a few days away, making U.N. Security Council action unneeded. Though he did not elaborate, his optimism appeared linked to the Russian proposal on limited enrichment. I am still very much hopeful that in the next week an agreement could be reached, ElBaradei said. Chinas foreign minister also appealed for more negotiations, suggesting no need for Security Council involvement. Iran should cooperate closely with the IAEA to settle the nuclear dispute, Li said. The Americans remained unconvinced. U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in Washington that unless Iran does a dramatic about-face, he expected the issue to be taken up by the Security Council. Diplomatic wrangling Rice later telephoned ElBaradei to reiterate the U.S. position that Iran should cease all enrichment-related activity, said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. In response, ElBaradei agreed that Iran must not be allowed to have enrichment activity on its territory, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not in position to speak for the IAEA. There was no official IAEA response. But a diplomat familiar with ElBaradeis stance questioned the U.S. version of ElBaradeis position, saying the IAEA chief remained convinced there was no alternative to allowing Iran some enrichment activity as a way of reaching a deal. The Russian proposal described by the diplomats would allow Tehran to conduct small-scale uranium enrichment, and would ask the IAEA to set the parameters of such activity to minimize the chances of abuse. In return, the diplomats said, Iran would be asked to recommit to in-depth IAEA probes of its program on short notice. Iran canceled such investigations last month after the IAEAs 35-nation board put the U.N. Security Council on alert by passing on Irans nuclear dossier. France, Britain and Germany broke off negotiations on behalf of the European Union with Iran last year after it resumed enrichment-related activities, which can produce both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Since then, they, the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan have been at the forefront of efforts to have the U.N. Security Council take up the Iran issue. ) 2006 MSNBC.com * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Seeking Compensation From IAEA From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 10:31 AM AP Photo VIE135 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on the U.N. nuclear agency to compensate Iran for suspending its nuclear activities since 2003, state television reported Tuesday. Ahmadinejad made the call shortly before the International Atomic Energy Agency began a second day of talks in Vienna that will include Iran's nuclear program. ``The IAEA now has to compensate Iran for causing damage to the development of its science, technology and economy'' due to the suspension of nuclear activities, the television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Under heavy pressure from the West, Iran suspended its enrichment of uranium and related activities in 2003 and began negotiating with the three big European powers to reach an agreed framework for its nuclear development. But the talks foundered last year when it became clear Iran was not going to agree to abandon enrichment, a process that can produce material for nuclear power generators or bombs. From August through January, Iran resumed in stages elements of its enrichment program - moves that were condemned internationally and led to the IAEA's decision last month to report the country to the Security Council. The United States and France have accused Iran of seeking to build an atomic bomb under the guise of a peaceful nuclear program. Iran denies this, insisting that its program is limited to generating electricity. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Offers to Suspend Uranium Enrichment From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 5:46 PM AP Photo VIE110 By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran is offering to suspend full-scale uranium enrichment for up to two years, a diplomat said Tuesday. But the move was unlikely to deflect pending U.N. Security Council action over the activity, which can be used to make nuclear arms. The diplomat told The Associated Press the offer was made Friday by chief Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani in Moscow in the context of contacts between Iran and Russia on moving Tehran's enrichment program to Russia. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was confidential. In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said any enrichment of nuclear fuel on Iranian territory was unacceptable, and Russia appeared to close ranks with the United States over the issue. Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency also said his country was not prepared to freeze small-scale enrichment, a key demand of Moscow, Washington and the European Union, along with many other nations. ``We've spent a lot on this,'' said the envoy, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, outside a 35-nation IAEA board meeting that is preparing to focus on Iran. Rice delivered the tough message - but shied away from warning of immediate U.N. sanctions - after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. ``We will see what is necessary to do in the Security Council,'' Rice said, adding that there was still time for Iran to change its ways. Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, said Iran won't be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and also said the issue may soon go before the Security Council. ``The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences,'' Cheney said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. ``We join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,'' Cheney said. He said the U.S. ``is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime.'' In the past the U.S. has said it has no intention of using military force for now, but has declined to completely rule it out. Moscow has been the sole negotiating partner of the Iranians in recent months. Diplomats familiar with those talks said Moscow was insisting on a full enrichment freeze of up to eight years, including small-scale activity. More than a dozen diplomats in Vienna had said over the last few days that Russian negotiators had floated a post-suspension resumption of limited work with centrifuges and other components of an enrichment program in talks with senior U.S. and European officials. At a news conference with Rice in Washington, however, Lavrov said there was no compromise in sight with Iran. He denied that Russia made a new proposal that would eventually permit Iran to enrich a limited amount of nuclear fuel on its own territory. U.S. officials, worried that the material could eventually be used for nuclear weapons, rejected such a plan on Monday. ``There is no compromise new Russian proposal,'' Lavrov said. Some diplomats spoke of a European rift, with Germany considering the Russian approach. But Herbert Honsowitz, the chief German representative to the IAEA, told the AP that was a misinterpretation, with the Germans only expressing ``appreciation'' to the Russians for trying to come up with new approaches to the deadlock on enrichment. A European official, in Vienna for the IAEA meeting, had said the Russian plan would fail if the Americans opposed it. The original Russian plan that surfaced last year, which is backed by the Americans and the European Union, would strip the Iranians of all enrichment potential. But the proposal the diplomats said that Lavrov carried Monday to Washington would have allowed the Iranians a yet-to-be-defined ``research and development'' capacity - including 20 uranium-enriching centrifuges. The diplomats said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei reluctantly backed the plan, considering that limiting Iran's enrichment capacities was better than letting it develop full-scale activities. On Monday, he told reporters a deal on Iran's suspect nuclear program could be only a few days away, making U.N. Security Council action unneeded. Although he did not elaborate, his optimism appeared linked to the Russian proposal on limited enrichment. Under the Russian proposal described by the diplomats, the IAEA would set the parameters of small-scale enrichment on Iranian soil to minimize the chances of abuse. In return, Iran would be asked to recommit to in-depth IAEA probes of its program on short notice. Iran canceled such investigations last month after the IAEA's board put the U.N. Security Council on alert by passing on Iran's nuclear dossier. France, Britain and Germany broke off negotiations on behalf of the European Union with Iran last year after it resumed enrichment-related activities, which can produce both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Since then, the Europeans as well as the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan have been at the forefront of efforts to have the U.N. Security Council take up the Iran issue. All involved - whether or not they supported allowing Iran some control of enrichment - were firm on the need for Tehran to first return to a freeze of all such activities for a prolonged period. The Vienna meeting is scheduled to hear a report by ElBaradei focusing on Iran's nuclear program, likely on Wednesday. The last board meeting already had sent the complete Iran file to the Security Council. This meeting is scheduled to pass the ElBaradei report on to the council, which then can decide whether to take action. In Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the IAEA to compensate Iran for suspending its nuclear activities in 2003, saying the halt has damaged the development of its ``science, technology and economy,'' state television reported. Ahmadinejad's claim that the IAEA had a debt to Iran appeared to be another bid to put pressure on the world body as it considers its report on Iran to the Security Council. In a second thrust at the diplomatic maneuvering over Tehran's nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the United States wanted the Russian and European mediation efforts to fail. ``It is evident that the United States has no interest in Iran's reaching an agreement with either of its negotiating partners (Russia or Europe),'' state television quoted Asefi as saying. --- Associated Press Writer Palma Benzenleitner contributed to this report from Vienna. --- On the Net: International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Firm Against Iran Nuclear Enrichment From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 5:01 PM By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration told Iran on Tuesday that any enrichment of nuclear fuel on Iranian territory was unacceptable, as Russia appeared to close ranks with the United States over Tehran's nuclear program. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered the tough message - but shied away from warning of immediate U.N. sanctions - after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. At a joint State Department news conference, Lavrov said there was no compromise in sight with Iran. Russia has been negotiating with Iran and has proposed enriching fuel on Russian soil for Iran's energy need. The International Atomic Energy Agency already has referred the Iranian nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council, a move spearheaded by the Bush administration. ``We will see what is necessary to do in the Security Council,'' Rice said. She said there was still time for Iran to change its ways but added: ``The United States has been very clear: the enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil is not acceptable.'' Lavrov denied that Russia has made a new proposal that would eventually permit Iran to enrich a limited amount of nuclear fuel on its own territory. United States officials, worried that the material could eventually be used for nuclear weapons, rejected such a plan on Monday. ``There is no compromise new Russian proposal,'' Lavrov said. Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, said in a speech Tuesday to a pro-Israel lobbying group that Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and warned that the issue may soon go before the Security Council. ``The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences,'' Cheney told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. ``We join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.'' He said the U.S. ``is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime.'' In the past the U.S. has said it has no intention of using military force for now, but has declined to completely rule it out. From the State Department, Rice and Lavrov were headed to the White House for a meeting with President Bush. Earlier in the day, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the U.S. expects the U.N. Security Council to move forward to rebuke Tehran for its disputed nuclear program. ``The international community has spelled out what Iran must do - that means suspend all enrichment activity,'' McClellan said. McClellan's comments came as a diplomat in Vienna, Austria, where the IAEA is meeting, told The Associated Press that Iran is offering to suspend full-scale uranium enrichment for up to two years. The offer reflected Tehran's attempts to escape Security Council action over the activity, which can be used to make nuclear arms. The diplomat, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue, said Tehran's offer was made Friday by chief Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani in Moscow in the context of contacts between Iran and Russia on moving Tehran's enrichment program to Russia. But Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Tuesday his country was not prepared to freeze small-scale enrichment. In Washington, McClellan said Iran ``has shown it cannot be trusted. ``It hid its nuclear activities for two decades from the international community. It has refused to comply with its international obligations. This is about the regime and its behavior. That's what this is about and that's what our focus is,'' he said. Russia is also a key player in the U.S. drive to limit aid to the extremist group Hamas, which has taken control of the Palestinian legislature. The U.S. desire for Russian help against Hamas is just one of several cards Lavrov holds as the Security Council prepares to take up the case of Iran's disputed nuclear program. Russia, which has veto power as one of the permanent members of the Security Council, is perhaps Tehran's most important ally and business partner. Russia also has crafted a potential compromise to head off sanctions or other punishment of Iran. China, which also has veto power on the Security Council, is appealing for further negotiation. ``Iran should cooperate closely with the IAEA to settle the nuclear dispute,'' Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said Tuesday in Beijing at a news conference. ``There is still room for settlement of the issue in the IAEA.'' The United States won a diplomatic coup in February when Russia went along with the U.S.-backed effort to report Iran to the council, but had to agree to a delay of at least a month before the council could take any action. That window is closing without the progress Russia hoped to claim on its proposed nuclear compromise. --- Associated Press Writer George Jahn contributed to this report from Vienna. ^--- On the Net: State Department: http://www.state.gov Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: Summary Box: Iran Faces Hard Line From U.S. From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 11:46 PM By The Associated Press TOUGH TALK: Vice President Dick Cheney came out Tuesday with another strong rebuke of Iran's efforts to start a nuclear program. THE DISPUTE: The United States does not want Iran to be able to process nuclear fuel that could be used for weapons. Iran says it wants a nuclear energy program. IN THE MIDDLE: Russia has offered to provide Iran with enriched uranium, a key component of any nuclear energy program. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 12 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Says U.N. Taking Up Iran Dispute From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 4:46 AM AP Photo VIE104 By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Unless Iran executes a dramatic about-face and suspends all its nuclear activities, the U.N. Security Council will intervene ``quite actively,'' a senior State Department official said Monday. The message to Iran is that it has ``crossed the international red line'' and engaged in unacceptable enrichment activity ``and there must be a U.N. Security Council process to deal with that,'' Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said. Burns did not say what the United States would ask the Security Council to do. While the Bush administration takes a stern line toward Tehran it might not be able to persuade other nations to impose economic or other penalties on Iran. The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which voted to refer the dispute to the Security Council, will reaffirm its stance this week in Vienna, Austria, ``unless Iran does a dramatic about-face and suspends all of its nuclear activities,'' Burns said at the Heritage Foundation, a private research group. His remarks followed a State Department spokesman's dismissal of reports an eleventh-hour compromise might be struck over Iran's nuclear program. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, said at his agency's Vienna headquarters on Monday that the council might not have to consider Iran's actions. Talks between Moscow and Tehran have focused on shifting Iran's fuel enrichment activities to Russia. Later, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned ElBaradei ``to reiterate the U.S. position that Iran should cease all enrichment-related activity.'' In response, ElBaradei agreed that Iran must not be allowed to have enrichment activity on its territory, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity beause he was not in position to speak for the IAEA. The United States has long spearheaded a campaign to haul Iran before the Security Council, which has the power to impose economic or other sanctions. There was no hint of optimism at the State Department about the latest efforts to defuse the issue, which ElBaradei said he hoped could produce a resolution in a week. ``I am not aware of any specific proposals or any specific ideas that would require or force any kind of delay in Security Council action,'' spokesman Casey said. Casey also downplayed a new twist to the Russian proposal that diplomats described to The Associated Press. Under it, the U.N. atomic watchdog agency would set a level of small-scale uranium enrichment that Iran would be allowed to conduct on its own soil as part of an attempt to keep Iran from using the fuel for nuclear weapons, said the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``You can't be just a little pregnant,'' Casey said of the U.S. attitude toward small-scale uranium work by Iran. The U.N.'s atomic energy agency voted last month to refer the Iran dispute to the Security Council. ``There is no obstacle to that discussion being taken up and we certainly believe that will happen shortly,'' Casey said. North Korea took a civilian nuclear program and quickly turned it into a bomb-making program, Casey said. The process of bringing Iran before the Security Council has been delayed several times. The European Union attempted to negotiate with Iran with the aim of halting the program in exchange for economic concessions. Then Russia came up with its enrichment proposal. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had dinner in Washington on Monday evening with Rice, and was due to meet with her and President Bush and Rice. On Wednesday, Lavrov is due to meet in New York with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. On his way to Washington, Lavrov stopped in Ottawa for talks with Canadian officials. Russian news agencies quoted him as saying Russia's proposal to shift Iran's uranium enrichment to Russia remains on the negotiating table but Iran must suspend enrichment on Iranian territory. In Vienna, headquarters for the nuclear watchdog group, ElBaradei said the Council might not have to explore Iran's actions. ``I am still very much hopeful that in the next week an agreement could be reached,'' he said. --- Associated Press Writer Foster Klug contributed to this story. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 13 Guardian Unlimited: China Urges Iran to Cooperate Over Nukes From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 8:46 AM BEIJING (AP) - China's foreign minister on Tuesday called on Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency to settle the dispute over its nuclear program. Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing appealed for more negotiation and for all sides in the dispute to stay calm. ``Iran should cooperate closely with the IAEA to settle the nuclear dispute,'' Li said in a nationally televised news conference held during the annual session of China's parliament. ``There is still room for settlement of the issue in the IAEA,'' Li said. The U.N. nuclear agency is meeting this week and could set in motion a process that could lead to turning the dispute over to the U.N. Security Council, which has the authority to impose sanctions on Iran. Tehran says its nuclear program is meant to generate power, but Western governments worry that it is aimed at making weapons. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 14 BBC: Iran demands nuclear compensation Last Updated: Tuesday, 7 March 2006 [President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists Iran has a right to run nuclear research Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the West should compensate Iran for its past suspension of nuclear research as a way of building trust. It comes as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is holding talks in Vienna that could pave the way to UN Security Council action against Iran. A foreign ministry spokesman said Iran was ready to compromise - but only if allowed to run some nuclear research. But the IAEA - and the US - say only a full suspension is acceptable. Western powers believe Iran wants to develop nuclear arms, a claim it denies. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday reaffirmed the US position that any nuclear enrichment on Iranian soil is unacceptable. There is no compromise n Russian proposal Sergei Lavrov Russian foreign minister Iran's diplomatic escalator Speaking after meeting Ms Rice in Washington, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted all Russia's recent negotiations had been focused on trying to persuade Tehran to comply with IAEA demands. "There is no compromise new Russian proposal," he said. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing has urged Iran to co-operate with the IAEA and stressed that there is still room for negotiation. Confidence-building measure Mr Ahmadinejad has said that Tehran will review its previous policies if it is reported to the UN Security Council. A senior military commander warned on Monday that the Iranian military would turn the country into a killing field for any enemy aggressor. The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says there is now more talk from Iranian officials of preparing people psychologically for confrontation with the West. [Mohamed ElBaradei at IAEA talks in Vienna] Mohamed ElBaradei says he is hopeful a deal can still be reached But Iranian television has accused Western media of exaggerating the dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions, our correspondent says. Speaking in Tehran on Tuesday, Mr Ahmadinejad said the IAEA "has to compensate Iran for causing damage to the development of its science, technology and economy". However, he failed to mention that Iran's suspension of uranium enrichment two years ago - the basis of his call for compensation - had been voluntary, our correspondent adds. Later, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Tehran was ready to compromise but only if it was allowed to continue its small-scale nuclear enrichment programme. Tehran was willing to suspend full-scale nuclear enrichment for a period as a trust-building measure, he told the BBC. It insists it has the right to develop its nuclear sector to produce energy for civilian purposes. Three years of negotiations between Iran and the EU have brought no significant result. Iran resumed enrichment in January after a two-year hiatus. ***************************************************************** 15 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Says Iranian Enrichment Unacceptable From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 10:46 PM AP Photo WX107 By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration drew a hard line on Iran Tuesday, warning of ``meaningful consequences'' if the Islamic government does not back away from an international confrontation over its disputed nuclear program. Edging toward the U.N. Security Council review it has long sought, Washington rejected any potential 11th hour compromise that would allow Iran to process nuclear fuel that could be used for weapons. Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States and other nations are agreed that ``we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.'' He said, ``The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences.'' Speaking to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, Cheney did not specify what the U.S. would do but said it ``is keeping all options on the table.'' American officials have said the government has no plans for military force but will not rule it out. The United States, Israel and several Arab nations fear development of an Iranian bomb would put Israel at risk or forever change the balance of power in the Middle East. Russia, which has played middleman on Iran since the breakdown of talks between Tehran and European nations, reassured U.S. officials that it remains on board as the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency again took up the Iran case in Vienna. The Security Council could have full purview over the issue by week's end, but there is no timetable for action there. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States is not seeking sanctions against Iran ``as a first matter.'' Russia has proposed a joint venture in which it would enrich uranium on Iran's behalf, keeping that critical component of the nuclear fuel process from potential misuse in Iran. The United States supports the plan in principle, but Iran has not signed on. Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected the notion of a separate compromise that would see Iran suspend full-scale uranium enrichment for up to two years but retain a small enrichment program. ``The United States has been very clear that enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil is not acceptable because of the proliferation risk,'' Rice said. A diplomat told The Associated Press that Iran made the suspension offer during talks in Moscow last week. The offer reflected Tehran's attempts to escape Security Council action over the enrichment, which can be used to make nuclear arms. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was confidential. ``There is no compromise new Russian proposal,'' Lavrov said. Russia, which has veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council, is perhaps Tehran's most important ally and business partner. Russia has gone along with U.S. efforts to refer the nuclear issue to the council but has never said it would support sanctions or other harsh punishment there. ``Have you seen a proposal for any sanctions?'' Lavrov snapped at reporters following an Oval Office meeting with President Bush on Tuesday. ``This is a hypothetical question, yes?'' At the State Department earlier, Lavrov appeared to warn the United States not to push Iran so hard that it withdraws from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or kicks out international inspectors. The treaty allows for some U.N. oversight of a nascent nuclear program that Iran says is meant to one day produce nuclear energy, not bombs. The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency has accused Iran of violating the treaty and concealing the extent of its nuclear activities. A possible Security Council rebuke could be based on those findings, along with anything new that inspectors turn up. ``In our view, any solution should take into account the desirability, very high desirability, to continue to investigate into the past program of Iran so that all the questions which the international community has could be answered by the experts,'' Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Rice. He spoke in the midst of two days of intensive diplomacy that illustrated the power Russia can hold as a broker or spoiler in the Middle East. The Bush administration also wanted Russian assurances that Moscow will not coddle Hamas now that the Islamic militants have taken control of the Palestinian legislature. Lavrov held multiple meetings with Rice, and was accorded the kind of White House welcome usually reserved for foreign heads of state or government, not foreign ministers. Russian President Vladimir Putin invited Hamas leaders to Moscow last weekend, a move that angered Israel and surprised the United States and Russia's other partners in the so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators. The United States, European Union and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization. The United States wants international unity to pressure Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence. ``The Quartet is not divided,'' Lavrov said after his White House meeting. ``The Quartet has the common position on Hamas.'' --- Associated Press Writer George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, contributed to this report. ^--- On the Net: State Department: http://www.state.gov Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 16 AFP: China calls on Iran to work with UN nuclear watchdog Tue Mar 7, 4:20 AM ET BEIJING (AFP) - China urged Iran" /> to cooperate with the United Nations" /> nuclear watchdog over its atomic program while calling on all sides involved in the crisis to exercise restraint. "We hope Iran will cooperate closely with the IAEA ( International Atomic Energy Agency" /> ) and adopt more measures that are helpful to building confidence," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said. "There is still time for a settlement of the issue within the framework of the IAEA," he said. The IAEA's 35-nation board met Monday to consider a report by its chief Mohamed ElBaradei, in which he said Iran was defying IAEA calls to halt uranium enrichment and should cooperate fully with inspectors. The meeting was seen as a possible prelude to the UN Security Council taking steps against Tehran for beginning uranium enrichment activities earlier this year as part of what the West believes is a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Li urged the international community not to give up efforts towards a diplomatic solution. "We hope all relevant parties will exercise restraint, remain calm and patient and show flexibility so as to achieve a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue," he said. Li said that Iran had the right of peaceful nuclear energy but it "should shoulder its relevant obligations" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 17 AFP: US stays firm in opposition to Iran nuclear enrichment - Tue Mar 7, 3:55 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States stood firm in its opposition to Iran" /> Iranbeing allowed to enrich any uranium as Russia denied it had offered a new "compromise" to Iran. "The Iranian regime needs to know that if its stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences," Vice President Dick Cheney" /> Dick Cheneysaid in a speech to a US- Israel" /> Israellobbying group. He said the United States was keeping "all options on the table" in addressing the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program. "We join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," he said. His comments came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Riceand President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushto discuss the crisis with Iran and other issues. Lavrov indicated following his meetings with Rice and Bush that there was no compromise in sight with Iran and denied reports that Moscow had submitted a new proposal that would allow Iran to enrich small quantities of uranium while Russia handles the main processing tasks for Tehran and then retrieves the nuclear waste. "There is no compromise proposal, and could not be any compromise proposal," he said. He said Moscow was sticking by its original offer that all of Iran's enrichment activities be conducted on Russian soil and added that no alternative deal had been offered. "There is no compromise to the Russian proposal," he told reporters at a press conference with Rice. He refused to comment on whether Russia would back sanctions against Iran if the UN Security Council decided to vote on such a resolution. Russia has veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council and it is unclear whether it would use it against Iran, with which it has strong business and diplomatic ties. Rice reiterated that the United States remained opposed to any sort of enrichment activities in Iran, which is suspected of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb. "I think the United States has been very clear that enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil is not acceptable because of the proliferation risk," Rice said. White House spokesman Scott McClellan also stressed that the United States would stand firm in its demand that Iran put a stop to its nuclear program. "We've made it very clear as have many in the international community that the regime must suspend all enrichment activities," he told reporters. "It cannot be allowed to pursue enrichment in any capacity or on any scale that would allow the regime to develop technologies needed to develop nuclear weapons." "Our concern is that the (Iranian) regime is developing nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian program," McClellan said. He added that the United States expects action to be taken by the UN Security Council once the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) concludes its review of Iran's nuclear case this week. "We believe it's important that the regime be held to account for its continued defiance of the international community," McClellan said. The Russian minister said it was important, however, to maintain contact with the Iranian government. "In our view, any solution should take into account the desirability, very high desirability, to continue to investigate into the past programme of Iran so that all the questions which the international community has could be answered by the experts," he said. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld meanwhile made new accusations that Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been infiltrating into Iraq" /> Iraq. "They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq, and we know it, and it is something that they will look back on as having been an error in judgment," he said. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 18 Guardian Unlimited: Cheney Says U.S. Won't Let Iran Get Nukes From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 5:16 PM WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and warned ``the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime.'' Cheney said the Iranian government ``continues to defy the world with its nuclear ambitions'' and that the issue may soon go before the U.N. Security Council. ``The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences,'' Cheney said in a speech to the to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential pro-Israel lobbying group. Cheney spoke as diplomats at an International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, were considering whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. The United States believes Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons; Iran says its nuclear program is for generating electricity. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in Washington Tuesday to discuss Iran with President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Cheney said the United States joins ``other nations in sending that regime a clear message: we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.'' He denounced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for calling for Israel's destruction and denying that the Nazi Holocaust of Jews took place. He said he supports the ``the democratic aspirations of the people of Iran'' and said ``Iranians have endured a generation of repression at the hands of a fanatical regime. That regime is one of the world's primary state sponsor of terror.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 19 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA Hopes for Deal on Iran Nuke Program From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 11:31 AM AP Photo VIE104 By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Strong U.S. opposition appeared close to torpedoing a Russian initiative that would leave Iran with a small-scale uranium enrichment program, diplomats said Tuesday as Moscow and Washington struggled to find common ground on what to do about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. One of the diplomats, who spoke outside a 35-nation IAEA board meeting, said Germany also remained open to the proposal, which would allow the Iranians to run 20 uranium-enriching centrifuges domestically while ceding control of large-scale enrichment to Moscow, on Russian soil. As the board meeting entered its second day, German representatives were meeting with counterparts from France and Britain - which both back the Americans in opposing the plan - to try to re-establish a common European stance on enrichment, said the diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging confidential information. A European official in Vienna for the meeting said that ultimately the plan would fail if the Americans opposed it. The dispute, which surfaced in the last few days, was driving a wedge into joint international efforts to wean Iran of all enrichment activity by moving it to Russia, thereby reducing its potential for misuse by Tehran. The original Russian plan that surfaced last year and is backed by the Americans and the European Union, would have stripped the Iranians of all enrichment potential. But the proposal carried to Washington Monday by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would allow the Iranians a still-to-be-defined ``research and development'' capacity - including the 20 centrifuges. The diplomats said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei backed the plan. On Monday, he told reporters a deal on Iran's suspect nuclear program could be only a few days away, making U.N. Security Council action unneeded. Though he did not elaborate, his optimism appeared linked to the Russian proposal on limited enrichment ``I am still very much hopeful that in the next week an agreement could be reached,'' ElBaradei said. China's foreign minister also appealed for more negotiations, suggesting no need for Security Council involvement. ``Iran should cooperate closely with the IAEA to settle the nuclear dispute,'' Li said. The Americans remained unconvinced. U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in Washington that ``unless Iran does a dramatic about-face,'' he expected the issue to be taken up by the Security Council. Later, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned ElBaradei ``to reiterate the U.S. position that Iran should cease all enrichment-related activity.'' In response, ElBaradei agreed that Iran must not be allowed to have enrichment activity on its territory, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not in position to speak for the IAEA. There was no official IAEA response. But a diplomat familiar with ElBaradei's stance questioned the U.S. version of ElBaradei's position, saying the IAEA chief remained convinced there was no alternative to allowing Iran some enrichment activity as a way of reaching a deal. The Russian proposal described by the diplomats would allow Tehran to conduct small-scale uranium enrichment, and would ask the IAEA to set the parameters of such activity to minimize the chances of abuse. In return, the diplomats said, Iran would be asked to recommit to in-depth IAEA probes of its program on short notice. Iran canceled such investigations last month after the IAEA's 35-nation board put the U.N. Security Council on alert by passing on Iran's nuclear dossier. France, Britain and Germany broke off negotiations on behalf of the European Union with Iran last year after it resumed enrichment-related activities, which can produce both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Since then, they, the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan have been at the forefront of efforts to have the U.N. Security Council take up the Iran issue. All involved - whether or not they supported allowing Iran some control of enrichment - were firm on the need for Tehran to first return to a freeze of all such activities for a prolonged time ``to re-establish confidence,'' said one of the diplomats He said the Russians had proposed eight years. A U.S. State Department official, who also insisted on anonymity, refused to specify a length of time but said two years would be too short. The Vienna meeting is scheduled to hear a report by ElBaradei focusing on Iran's nuclear program, likely on Wednesday. The last board meeting already had sent the complete Iran file to the Security Council. This meeting is scheduled to pass the ElBaradei report on to the council, which then can decide whether to take action. --- On the Net: International Atomic Energy Agency, www.iaea.org Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 20 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Needs Help From Russia on Iran From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 10:31 AM AP Photo OTTH104 By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is getting closer to a U.N. Security Council rebuke of Iran, but the latest round of diplomacy shows the United States needs the help of Cold War foe Russia to close the deal. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is holding multiple meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, plus a highly unusual session in the Oval Office with President Bush on Tuesday. Rice and Lavrov had dinner together Monday evening. U.S. presidents customarily receive foreign heads of state in the presidential office, but seldom invite a lower-ranking official such as a foreign minister for a meeting there. Russia is also a key player in the U.S. drive to limit aid to the extremist group Hamas, which has taken control of the Palestinian legislature. The U.S. desire for Russian help against Hamas is just one of several cards Lavrov holds as the Security Council prepares to take up the case of Iran's disputed nuclear program. Russia, which has veto power as one of the permanent members of the Security Council, is perhaps Tehran's most important ally and business partner. Russia also has crafted a potential compromise to head off sanctions or other punishment of Iran. China, which also has veto power on the Security Council, is appealing for further negotiation. ``Iran should cooperate closely with the IAEA to settle the nuclear dispute,'' Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said Tuesday in Beijing at a news conference. ``There is still room for settlement of the issue in the IAEA.'' The United States won a diplomatic coup in February when Russia went along with the U.S.-backed effort to report Iran to the council, but had to agree to a delay of at least a month before the council could take any action. That window is closing without the progress Russia hoped to claim on its proposed nuclear compromise. It is not clear, however, that Moscow will support a U.S. move for penalties against Iran. Russian agencies quoted Lavrov as saying Monday that Russia's proposal to move Iran's uranium enrichment program to Russian territory remains on the table, but that Iran must reimpose a moratorium on the enrichment of uranium and agree to new scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency. ``The result of the IAEA session that has begun in Vienna can be satisfactory only if the remaining questions about Iran's past nuclear program are completely answered,'' Lavrov said in Ottawa, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Rice telephoned Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA at the agency's Vienna headquarters on Monday to reiterate the U.S. position that Iran ``must cease all (uranium) enrichment-related activity,'' according to State Department spokesman Tom Casey. Meanwhile, a top State Department official warned that the Security Council will intervene ``quite actively'' if Iran does not act quickly on the nuclear issue. The IAEA will reaffirm its stance this week in Vienna, ``unless Iran does a dramatic about-face and suspends all of its nuclear activities,'' Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told the Heritage Foundation, a private research group. He did not say what the United States would ask the Security Council to do. While the Bush administration takes a stern line toward Tehran it is not seeking economic or other penalties immediately, and might not be able to win Russian or other backing for that move in any case. Russia is something of a wild card, in international efforts to persuade the new Palestinian Hamas leadership to recognize Israel and renounce violence, or suffer a devastating loss of overseas financial backing. Russian President Vladimir Putin invited Hamas leaders to Moscow last weekend, a move that angered Israel and surprised the United States and Russia's other partners in the so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators. The United States, European Union and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization. On both Iran and Hamas, the United States needs Russian acquiescence, if not outright support. That may make it more difficult for the administration to press Lavrov very hard over what Rice recently called a disturbing erosion of democratic guarantees in post-Soviet Russia. U.S. officials insist they will not give Russia a pass. ``There are areas where ... we differ, and we think we can have a frank and candid exchange of views with them on those subjects,'' State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday. ``We're certainly going to continue to make clear our concerns about those areas where we do have problems.'' Putin, while on good terms personally with Bush, has been criticized for centralizing political power and rolling back democratic gains. ^--- On the Net: State Department: http://www.state.gov Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 21 ITAR-TASS: US: Consultations with DPRK unrelated to six-way talks. 07.03.2006, 07.35 WASHINGTON, March 7 (Itar-Tass) - The United States has declared that consultations, opening in New York on Tuesday, with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) are not related in any way to the six-sided talks on the nuclear problem. The upcoming consultations will deal exclusively with economic sanctions applied by the US against a number of North Korean companies, State Department spokesman Tom Casey told journalists on Monday. Ri Gun, deputy director of the North America department of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, arrives in New York to attend the consultations that are to take place in the DPRK mission at the UN headquarters. The George W. Bush administration has offered to hold a technical briefing for the DPRK authorities to tell them about the US legislation directed against unlawful financial operations, and explain why steps were taken against the Banco Delta Asia. The bank, based in the Macao (Aomen) administrative district of the People's Republic of China, along with several North Korean firms, has found itself in the US sanctions list on charges of money laundering and distributing counterfeited currency. Mr. Casey said that although the upcoming consultations are not linked with the six-party talks, the US considers that the DPRK ought to return to the negotiating table at the nuclear talks as soon as possible regardless of what will be said at the technical briefing. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 22 [NYTr] Bush's India Deal Makes US a Nuclear Proliferator Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 19:53:25 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit InterPress Service via Info Clearing House - Mar 6, 2006 http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12217.htm India Deal Makes US a Nuclear Proliferator By Ranjit Devraj 03/06/06 NEW DELHI, Mar 4 (IPS)--Campaigners for a nuclear-free South Asia are aghast at the potential nightmare that lies ahead following the nuclear technology and fuel deal announced here this week by visiting United States President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "This deal may have further complicated an already difficult situation in South Asia which has two rival self-declared nuclear weapon states," said N.D. Jayaprakash, lead campaigner for the Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND), which counts among its ranks well-known scientists and intellectuals. "What is sad is that nowhere in all this did the idea that nuclear weapons are not safe in anybody's hands come up, and now, far from the disarmament debate, the clamour by other countries that they too be allowed to possess nuclear weapons has grown louder," he added. Pakistan, where Bush was rounding off his four-day South Asian tour on Saturday, was first off the block demanding a civilian nuclear technology deal similar to the one Washington signed with its regional rival on the grounds that it was short on fossil fuel. But, at a televised press conference in Islamabad, Bush ruled out any such deal with Pakistan. "We discussed the civilian nuclear programme and I explained to him (Musharraf) that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories," Bush said. "What is happening is that, with this deal, the U.S. has itself become the biggest proliferator of nuclear technology," Prof. Anuradha Chinoy, disarmament specialist at the Jawaharalal Nehru University (JNU), told IPS in an interview. "The only difference is that what the U.S. is practicing is selective proliferation." Chinoy said the deal went against the ideal of universal disarmament and would only make aspirant countries, denied entry into the select nuclear club, even more dangerous and desperate, as could be seen from the examples of Iran, Pakistan and North Korea.. Iran has already accused the U.S. and India of double standards. As its case moves towards a likely reference to the U.N. Security Council, Iran will certainly raise the 'double standards' pitch. Worst of all, said Chinoy, the "U.S. and India are now partners in violating international law by not involving the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the 45-country Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) before agreeing to transfer nuclear fuel and technology". Both the IAEA and the NSG are United Nations bodies. Indian newspapers, however, have been hailing the deal as a triumph for its negotiators' skills. They succeeded in keeping the country's demonstrated capacity to make nuclear weapons away from international inspections while gaining access to advanced reactors and technology for its civilian programme. On top of that India has all along refused to be signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the grounds that it was discriminatory. It carried out nuclear tests in 1974, attracting international sanctions, but defiantly went on to declare itself a nuclear weapons state in 1998 through a second round of tests. Following Thursday's deal, Singh told a press conference that under the Indo-U.S. pact the NSG and the IAEA would be made to formulate India-specific safeguards. Under existing rules, by contrast, the NSG cannot supply 'dual-use' nuclear technology to India since it does not accept full-scope IAEA safeguards on nuclear facilities. So far, though, the agreement has received praise from IAEA director general Mohamed El Baradei, who has described it as "timely for ongoing efforts to consolidate the non-proliferation regime, combat nuclear terrorism and strengthen nuclear safety". India has been allowed to classify eight of its existing 22 reactors as military and keep them away from IAEA inspectors and also decide whether any future reactor it builds ought to be classified as civilian or military. Most importantly, India has been able to keep its entire fast-breeder reactor programme in the military list. Fast breeders use fission caused by fast neutrons and burn highly concentrated or enriched fuel and, theoretically, they generate more fissile material than they consume. And the deal has no caps on fissile material, including weapons-grade plutonium. Even before Bush landed in India on Wednesday, Singh made pledged in parliament that the fast breeder programme, a pet project of India's secretive Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), would not be compromised in any way. "It is possible that DAE officials want to have the option of producing nuclear fuel for weapons in these unsafeguarded reactors," said M.V. Ramana, well-known a physicist at Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, located in southern Indian city of Bangalore. Another possible reason for the fierce resistance put up by DAE, through interviews fed to the media by its chief Anil Kakodkar, is that the fast breeder sites also house facilities for the nuclear reactor that India is developing for its submarines. "Indian authorities probably don't want IAEA inspectors lurking around there," Ramana told IPS. (END/2006) Copyright ) 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 23 [NYTr] Dr. Strangelove is Our President Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 19:52:52 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit CounterPunch - March 7, 2006 http://www.counterpunch.org/blair03072006.html Dr. Strangelove is Our President Global Peace Through Nuclear Weapons By JOHN BLAIR Is this a bad dream? Please wake me up! Is Dr. Strangelove really our President? But, it is not a dream. George W. Bush has decided that the world needs another nuclear arms race and has done so by going to India and signing an agreement to undermine the five decade success of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which India has refused to sign. As a result, India will be able to build increasing numbers of nuclear weapons with US approval and supplies, so they can gain an upper hand on our other "ally" in the region who the Indians love to hate, Pakistan, who also has nuclear weapons. For nearly fifty years the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has served us well. But India has always been a rogue nation to that treaty and has refused to become a part of the larger nuclear weapons club of England, France, China, Russia and the US. India and Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have also developed nuclear weapons but have had a hard time making them in any large numbers due to a lack of weapons grade nuclear fuel. Throughout the 1970s, the world lived in fear of an accelerated program of nuclear weapons development and use in Central Asia when India and Pakistan repeatedly use a nuclear threat toward each other. Apparently, Bush was in too much of a fog with his drinking in that period to remember all that. So now he not only went to India encouraging them to acquire more American jobs through outsourcing but also paved the way for India to initiate a nuclear arms race with Pakistan and maybe even China, by agreeing to the US sale of nuclear fuel and reactor parts to a country that has refused to allow even inspection of their nuclear program or sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Yes, India is the world's largest democracy but that does not make them immediately trustworthy on the gravest of all issues. After all, they are a country that has done testing of nuclear weapons against nearly all world opinion, dousing the world with large levels of radiation just to flex their muscles against their arch enemy neighbor, Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan will expect us to give them similar treatment even though they are probably harboring the arch enemy we seem so frightened about, Bin Laden. And if we are going to strike such a deal with India, just where is our moral high ground in telling Iran they cannot have nukes of their own. Don't they claim that their nuclear program is only peaceful? It was Nixon who signed the original nonproliferation treaty and the fall of the Soviet Union allowed for dismantling of large numbers of nukes around the world but Bush seems intent to undermine that effort and create another arms race, one that may end up more dangerous than that with the Soviets and the US, since this one will between neighbors, whom we know at least one is home of large numbers of terrorists. No need for intercontinental ballistic missiles since they share a common border. These last few weeks have revealed a situation in which anyone can see that it is not American interests that Bush has in mind, From the Ports deal to this absurdity, America will be losers while Bush's corporate friends and arms dealers around the world will reap huge benefits as the earth collapses into further disarray. Can we afford three more years of this? I do not think so. Hopefully, Richard Lugar, as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will stop this deal in its tracks and tell Bush that he needs to serve American interests instead of those of his business enablers. John Blair is president of the environment health advocacy group, Valley Watch and earned a Pulitzer Prize for news Photography in 1978. He can be reached at: Ecoserve1@aol.com Is this a bad dream? Please wake me up! Is Dr. Strangelove really our President? But, it is not a dream. George W. Bush has decided that the world needs another nuclear arms race and has done so by going to India and signing an agreement to undermine the five decade success of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which India has refused to sign. As a result, India will be able to build increasing numbers of nuclear weapons with US approval and supplies, so they can gain an upper hand on our other "ally" in the region who the Indians love to hate, Pakistan, who also has nuclear weapons. For nearly fifty years the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has served us well. But India has always been a rogue nation to that treaty and has refused to become a part of the larger nuclear weapons club of England, France, China, Russia and the US. India and Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have also developed nuclear weapons but have had a hard time making them in any large numbers due to a lack of weapons grade nuclear fuel. Throughout the 1970s, the world lived in fear of an accelerated program of nuclear weapons development and use in Central Asia when India and Pakistan repeatedly use a nuclear threat toward each other. Apparently, Bush was in too much of a fog with his drinking in that period to remember all that. So now he not only went to India encouraging them to acquire more American jobs through outsourcing but also paved the way for India to initiate a nuclear arms race with Pakistan and maybe even China, by agreeing to the US sale of nuclear fuel and reactor parts to a country that has refused to allow even inspection of their nuclear program or sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Yes, India is the world's largest democracy but that does not make them immediately trustworthy on the gravest of all issues. After all, they are a country that has done testing of nuclear weapons against nearly all world opinion, dousing the world with large levels of radiation just to flex their muscles against their arch enemy neighbor, Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan will expect us to give them similar treatment even though they are probably harboring the arch enemy we seem so frightened about, Bin Laden. And if we are going to strike such a deal with India, just where is our moral high ground in telling Iran they cannot have nukes of their own. Don't they claim that their nuclear program is only peaceful? It was Nixon who signed the original nonproliferation treaty and the fall of the Soviet Union allowed for dismantling of large numbers of nukes around the world but Bush seems intent to undermine that effort and create another arms race, one that may end up more dangerous than that with the Soviets and the US, since this one will between neighbors, whom we know at least one is home of large numbers of terrorists. No need for intercontinental ballistic missiles since they share a common border. These last few weeks have revealed a situation in which anyone can see that it is not American interests that Bush has in mind, From the Ports deal to this absurdity, America will be losers while Bush's corporate friends and arms dealers around the world will reap huge benefits as the earth collapses into further disarray. Can we afford three more years of this? I do not think so. Hopefully, Richard Lugar, as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will stop this deal in its tracks and tell Bush that he needs to serve American interests instead of those of his business enablers. [John Blair is president of the environment health advocacy group, Valley Watch and earned a Pulitzer Prize for news Photography in 1978. He can be reached at: Ecoserve1@aol.com] * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 24 Congress Can Stop the U.S.-India Nuclear Proliferation Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 15:26:11 -0600 (CST) When President Bush arrived in New Delhi last week, India had the capacity to produce 6 to 10 nuclear weapons per year. When he departed after reaching a tentative nuclear deal with India, that South East Asian nation will potentially be able to produce nearly 50 nuclear weapons per year. Before the new U.S.-India nuclear agreement is implemented, however, Congress will have to approve changes to existing legislation that would weaken several nonproliferation laws. This deal would undermine years of work by the U.S. to strengthen the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the international agreement endorsed by 188 nations that bans the export of nuclear technology to countries that don't agree to international inspections of their nuclear programs. India has refused to sign the NPT and has conducted tests of a nuclear weapon as recently as 1998. Nonetheless, the Bush administration wants to provide India with nuclear technology and fuel. In exchange, India has agreed to international inspections for 14 of its 22 nuclear reactors. This proposal undermines the NPT by tacitly encouraging other countries to make bilateral nuclear agreements with non-NPT members in violation of a basic principle of that agreement. The proposed U.S.-India agreement could also deteriorate relatively stable relations between India and Pakistan if the latter perceives this agreement to be an aggressive move. What would stop Pakistan from reaching a similar agreement with China? Furthermore, even while the U.S. is criticizing Iran (an NPT member) for developing its nuclear technology, the U.S. is simultaneously creating a double standard by offering India (a non-NPT member) similar nuclear technology. The U.S. loses a lot from this nuclear agreement with India and gains very little. *Congress Can Block This Deal* The verbal nuclear cooperation agreement that President Bush negotiated with Indian Prime Minister Singh last week is far from a done deal. Congress will soon begin debating legislation to implement the U.S.-India nuclear agreement. Please let your representative know that you care about reducing the nuclear danger and that you oppose the U.S.-India nuclear deal. To see reasons and talking points visit http://www.fcnl.org/redir/1506india/ Rep. Ed Markey (MA), a leading critic of the deal, recently quipped, "You can't preach temperance from a barstool." If you have not done so, please encourage your representative to cosponsor H.Con.Res. 318 (http://www.fcnl.org/redir/1606hconres318/ ), a bipartisan resolution expressing concern about the proposed nuclear plan. See an updated list of cosponsors: http://www.fcnl.org/redir/1706cosponsors/ Some congressional offices have not heard from their constituents on this issue, so many may think that the public does not care about or understand this issue. Your emails and calls to your representative are key, especially if he or she is on the House International Relations Committee. Find out if your representative is on this committee at http://www.fcnl.org/redir/1806houseir/ Read FCNL's Legislative Action Message on the U.S.-India nuclear deal from two weeks ago: http://www.fcnl.org//redir/1906indialam/. For updated information about the U.S.-India nuclear deal, please visit: http://www.fcnl.org/redir/2006nuclear/ _______________________________________ The Next Step for Iraq: Join FCNL's Iraq Campaign, http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/ Contact Congress and the Administration: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/ Order FCNL publications and "War is Not the Answer" campaign bumper stickers and yard signs: http://www.fcnl.org/pubs/ http://www.fcnl.org/forms/forms.php?type=bump Contribute to FCNL: http://www.fcnl.org/donate/ Subscribe or update your information to this list: http://capwiz.com/fconl/mlm/. To unsubscribe from this list, please see the end of this message. Subscribe to other FCNL legislative, policy, and action alert lists: http://www.fcnl.org/forms/forms.php?type=ls. ________________________________________ Friends Committee on National Legislation 245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795 fcnl@fcnl.org * http://www.fcnl.org phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330 We seek a world free of war and the threat of war We seek a society with equity and justice for all We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled We seek an earth restored. --- If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from us, please visit http://capwiz.com/fconl/lmx/u/?jobid=66247289&queueid=643157956. ***************************************************************** 25 NO SURRENDER DOCTRINE --Russian offer ruffles West Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 09:55:55 -0600 (CST) http://sg.news.yahoo.com/060307/3/3z78f.html Tuesday March 7, 11:39 PM Reuters VIENNA (Reuters) - Russia has offered to let Iran do some atomic research if it refrains from enriching uranium on an industrial scale for 7 to 9 years, diplomats said on Tuesday, cracking big-power unity on how to stop Tehran getting the bomb. Iran reacted coolly, with one diplomat saying Tehran could accept a two-year moratorium on industrial atomic fuel production, but not longer, in exchange for centrifuge research. And he said Iran's idea of research entailed running nearly 3,000 enrichment centrifuges, which the West would consider industrial-scale and could yield highly enriched uranium sufficient for one nuclear bomb per year. Washington rejected any concession to let Iran feed uranium gas into a small cascade, or chain, of centrifuges, saying it would inevitably give Tehran the know-how to make warheads. Britain, Germany and France agreed with its U.S. ally, diplomats from the EU trio said, and Berlin's IAEA ambassador said reports that Germany was amenable to the idea were wrong. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, alluded to Moscow's formula when he held out hope on Monday for a deal soon to defuse the crisis without U.N. Security Council intervention against Iran. A council debate on Iran looms after an IAEA board meeting now in its second day. "Any moratorium of more than two years and any suspension of nuclear research activities (as the West demands) will make it difficult to reach a deal. The face-saving solution is to enrich uranium on a limited scale .. during the two years," he said. Iran says its nuclear programme aims solely at generating electricity. But it concealed atomic research from the IAEA for 18 years and its calls for Israel's destruction alarm the West. "Russia has circulated a proposal to the (EU and U.S.) capitals that would let Iran conduct limited enrichment research if it suspends industrial-scale efforts for 7 to 9 years," said a diplomat from one of the three EU powers. He said the plan, still exploratory and only verbal, would also require Tehran to ratify a protocol allowing snap IAEA inspections of its atomic sites and accept a joint venture under which Russia would supply Tehran with low-enriched uranium. Like other officials, he asked not to be identified in exchange for divulging details of the diplomatic manoeuvring. Russian diplomats were expected to meet experts in the IAEA's secretariat later this week to get a technical assessment as to what level of nuclear research in Iran could be "safe" from the risk of diversion into a military programme, he said. Asked about the reports, a spokesman at Russia's Foreign Ministry said it "needs more time" before it could comment. BRIDGING IRAN-EU GAP Moscow's reported package looked like an effort to bridge a gap between Iran's previously expressed readiness to defer any firing up of thousands of centrifuges for up to two years and the EU trio's demand for a 10-year moratorium on all enrichment. The diplomat close to Iran's negotiations said Tehran could discuss "more intensive monitoring" of research activities with the IAEA within the framework of a deal with Russia. But Washington again ruled out letting Iran pursue any atomic fuel development and predicted the Security Council would tackle Iran's case, barring a sudden Iranian change of heart. Russian and U.S. officials expected a frank airing of differences on Iran when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later on Tuesday. "You can't have the regime pursuing enrichment on any scale," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey, "because pursuing (that) allows them to master the technology, complete the fuel cycle -- and then that technology can easily be applied to a clandestine program for assembling nuclear weapons." But diplomats said Russia and ElBaradei see the gesture as a way to restrain Iranian hardliners who say a disgruntled Iran might quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In defying calls to halt all enrichment-related work, Iran seems to be counting on divisions in the Security Council over whether to resort to sanctions mooted by the United States. While Moscow and Beijing also do not want Iran to acquire atom bomb technology, they want to protect big trade stakes with Tehran and could use their council vetoes to block sanctions. U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Washington, might try to get EU allies and others join it in non-U.N. travel and financial sanctions on Iran if Tehran proved obdurate. Herbert Honsowitz, Germany's ambassador to the IAEA, denied reports Berlin was warming to Russia's offer. "We have not accepted it or considered it in any way," he told Reuters. ***************************************************************** 26 Bellona: USA to allocate $119m for hydrogen vehicles development American government will allocate 119 million dollars to develop technologies for hydrogen vehicles. 2006-03-07 11:43 According to the US Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman, the money is to be spent on researches, aimed to eliminate technical and production difficulties in serial hydrogen cars production. The Minister underlined that this initiative assorts with politics of George Bush, aimed to stimulate energy development, decrease pollution to the atmosphere and the country’s dependence on oil export. Nowadays hydrogen cars production and operation is several times expensive than ordinary cars. The White House hopes that hydrogen cars will be more available and cheaper in 20 years, ITAR TASS reported. The US Secretary of Energy, Research Council on Transport and three main car concerns – “Ford”, “General Motors” and “Daimler Chryslers” are responsible for such work. According to Bodman, about 100 million dollars to be spent on researches, connected with hydrogen engine production during the nearest four years. The American President announced a Program of mass hydrogen vehicles production. It is a five-year Program, which costs 1.2 billion dollars. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 27 RIA Novosti: Russia, U.S. could conclude nuclear agreements before G8 summit 07/ 03/ 2006 WASHINGTION, March 7 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and the U.S. could reach important agreements in the nuclear sphere before a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in St. Petersburg, Russia's foreign minister said Tuesday. Sergei Lavrov told a news conference after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that both countries were interested in the initiatives in the sphere of nuclear energy and security that had been proposed by Vladimir Putin and George Bush "It is important that this cooperation develops through interaction between experts and leads to important agreements, preferably before the G8 summit," he said. St. Petersburg, Russia's second city, will host the summit in July. © 2005 RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 28 reviewjournal.com: ONLINE GUY: They're podcasters hear 'em roar, their messages are making local lore Mar. 07, 2006 Podcasting can turn anyone into an overnight star -- including preachers, newcomers, scientists and journalists. All it takes is a microphone, a digital recorder, editing software and something to share with the rest of the world. "Godcasting" is what Bill Hoshauer, associate pastor of The Crossing (www.thecrossingonline.com) calls the weekly audio and video podcasts of church services. He got the idea to share sermons and church services after years of taping the messages and burning them to compact discs. He heard from a church member stationed in Kuwait, where the CDs were used in informal religious services. That evolved into video podcasts of entire Sunday services. Las Vegas newcomers Scott and Melissa Whitney share their "first-person look at living in Sin City" at Living in Las Vegas (www.livinginlv.com). The couple's weekly show has a folksy, yet technically polished feel, as they share experiences ranging from real estate and home construction adventures to exploring downtown's First Friday celebration to a tour of Mesquite. They rate their finds either "hot or horrible," in hopes of helping other newcomers as they settle into the city. Photos accompanying each podcast are posted on their Web site. The Yucca Mountain Project has joined the podcast revolution, said Erik Muller, public information officer for Clark County's Comprehensive Planning Nuclear Waste Division. The podcast is part of the division's Web site at (www.co.clark.nv.us/Comprehensive_plannning/YuccaMountainPodcast. htm). One goal of the podcast is to reach specific populations. A recent edition of the Yucca Mountain podcast addressed the Chinese population in Las Vegas. "We have received magnificent results from the podcast and have been able to reach younger publics," Muller said. "We just finished a podcast with the Chinese Community and are getting ready to produce a podcast in Spanish." Podcasting the NevadaNewsmakers (www.nevadanewsmakers. com) television program has boosted Web traffic more than 20 percent, producer and host Sam Shad said. Freelance journalists Steve Friess and Miles Smith recently broke the news of the closing of "Avenue Q" at Wynn Las Vegas, information they obtained during an interview with Steve Wynn and distributed through their podcast -- "The Strip" (www.thestrippodcast.com). "For the first time that I know of, the major mainstream media was forced to report on a story broken via a podcast interview from our show," Friess said. "It is a significant, maturing moment of the young podcast medium, moving from entertainment to a mode of creating and disseminating journalism." For more on podcasting visit Podcast411 (www.podcast411.com) Share your Internet story with me at agibes@reviewjournal.com. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006 Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement ***************************************************************** 29 AFP: India says nuclear deterrent capabilities intact despite US pact Tue Mar 7, 2:22 AM ET NEW DELHI (AFP) - The landmark India-US nuclear pact will in no way affect India's nuclear deterrent capabilities, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told parliament. "The ability to maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent is intact," Singh said on Tuesday, adding, "there will be no capping of our strategic programme." He was speaking about a deal reached last Thursday during a visit by US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushgiving India access to long-denied civilian technology in exchange for allowing international inspection of some Indian nuclear facilities. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse. ***************************************************************** 30 IEER: Statement on the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal Press Statement of Arjun Makhijani on the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal 3 March 2006 The U.S.-India nuclear deal is not good for either country. It could also create problems in other areas of the world. United States The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal is the latest in a series of U.S. actions in the past few years that undermine the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). First it was an attack on Article VI of the NPT, on disarmament: The United States Senate rejected ratification of the test ban treaty and the Bush administration has rejected it altogether (though a test moratorium continues). The United States has also renounced obligations that it and other nuclear weapons states made to non-nuclear parties at the 1995 and 2000 Review Conferences. Now, with India and Iran in different ways, it is NPT's Article IV that is being cast aside. Iran, a party to the NPT unlike India, is being asked to permanently forgo its "inalienable right" to nuclear energy under Article IV, despite the fact that its violations were not nearly as severe as North Korea. Iran did not make weapons usable material, so far as is known, while North Korea did and withdrew from the NPT. It is unclear how the United States will now deal with demands for nuclear energy and even reprocessing from countries like Egypt or Morocco. Venezuela has announced its desire for nuclear energy. If allowed to go forward by the U.S. Congress, the India-U.S. agreement would be a unilateral modification of the NPT. This would be very corrosive of the rule of law internationally in an area that is crucial for global security. Also, the India-U.S. agreement fits in with the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in which the Bush administration seeks to create fuel cycle countries that can reprocess and nuclear reactor countries that would not be allowed to do so, which would also unilaterally modify Article IV without going through the amendment procedure specified in the NPT. The deal is politically risky. If the U.S. Congress rejects it, as is quite possible given that India would be allowed to add to its nuclear weapons infrastructure for the indefinite future, or if the U.S. Congress attaches additional constraints to the agreement, the reaction in India is likely to be vigorous and negative, potentially disrupting the growing India-U.S. relationship. It is also not clear that the deal faces smooth sailing in India. India India is not a party to the NPT and thus is not guaranteed nuclear power technology and enriched fuel India has never joined the NPT because it is discriminatory; spokespersons often referred to the treaty's division of nuclear-weapon haves and have-nots as "nuclear apartheid." But that rhetoric faded after the Indian nuclear tests of 1998, when India began to seek entry into the club that it once said it wanted to dismantle via universal elimination of nuclear weapons. Now, India is part of the nuclear weapons club, since the agreement allows India to expand its nuclear weapons program at will. The U.S. position that India has not proliferated its weapons technology to other countries is true enough. However, India's seeking a "unique" position with the United States at a time when then latter seeks to extend the two-tier structure to civilian nuclear energy puts India in the position of being aligned with the creation of "nuclear apartheid" in the nuclear power realm as well as with nuclear weapons. It is noteworthy that universal nuclear disarmament, a long-held Indian goal, was not a part of the U.S.-Indian negotiations. Nuclear power plants, even at the officially projected level of 20,000 megawatts for the year 2020, are not going to significantly contribute to solving India's energy problems. The United States has expressed an opinion that India should not proceed with the India-Pakistan-Iran natural gas pipeline deal. The nuclear deal may undermine the pipeline project if India gave a quid pro quo to the United States on this question. The pipeline project is not only much more important to Indian energy supply than nuclear power, but it is also important to peace in the region. (See Arjun Makhijani's interview on this issue at ). While President Bush was careful not to make an explicit linkage between U.S. policy on Iran and the U.S. India nuclear deal, he did mention Iran very prominently in the context of U.S.-India collaboration on security issues. An Indian vote with the United States on Iran will now look more like a quid pro quo than the two earlier Indian votes at the IAEA. Pakistan The deal could also upset U.S. relations with Pakistan, as the United States has announced that there will be no similar deal for Pakistan. China is currently building a reactor in Pakistan, which may turn even more to China for civilian nuclear technology. How that nuclear relationship will evolve in view of the U.S. approach to nuclear power globally remains to be seen. -30- Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and an expert on nuclear related energy and security issues. Bio: Dr. Makhijani is available for interviews. Call IEER at 1-301-270-5500. + (Arjun Makhijani's interview with , Dec. 28, 2005) + Comments to ieer at ieer.org Takoma Park, Maryland, USA March 3, 2006 ***************************************************************** 31 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Campaigning for U.S.-India Nuke Deal From the Associated Press [UP] Tuesday March 7, 2006 11:01 AM By FOSTER KLUG Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration has started an aggressive campaign to convince skeptical lawmakers of the merits of a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with India. Nicholas Burns, a top State Department official, told an audience Monday at the Heritage Foundation that a ``very intensive debate'' looms on the accord that he helped to settle last week during Bush's visit to India. ``We're prepared for that debate,'' Burns said at the conservative think tank. ``We will advise the Congress that it is our very clear judgment that this is a good deal for the United States as well as for India.'' Burns said Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other officials would spend the coming weeks briefing lawmakers. On Tuesday, the White House planned to meet with lawmakers to discuss the agreement. Richard Boucher, the newly appointed assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, was to discuss the deal Thursday at a Washington think tank. Burns said that, ``on a deal as esoteric, frankly, and as complex as this one, members of the Senate and House are going to want to see the details and a full explanation, and we intend to give them.'' Despite GOP control of Congress, lawmakers have shown a growing tendency to break from Bush's leadership as his popularity has declined and congressional elections approach in November. The administration will be working to win over a Congress that was cautious, at best, in reacting to news that Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had agreed to a deal. Some critics worried that it could undermine efforts to stop nuclear proliferation. Lawmakers from both political parties said they would wait for the Bush administration to argue its case before deciding whether to vote for nuclear shipments to India. Singh assured skeptical Indian lawmakers in New Delhi on Tuesday that the pact covering commercial nuclear power will not limit the scope of India's atomic weapons program. ``There will no capping of our strategic program,'' he said. To bring the agreement into force, Congress must either change, or approve an exception to, the U.S. law that bans civilian nuclear cooperation with countries that have not submitted to full nuclear inspections. India, which carried out its first nuclear explosion in 1974, has not signed the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Some fear the Bush plan could allow rogue countries outside the treaty to build nuclear weapons programs with imported civilian technology. Burns gave a preview of the administration's case for the India deal. He defended it as bringing ``India into the nonproliferation mainstream'' by increasing international inspections and putting U.N. safeguards on India's civilian nuclear power industry. India has committed to place 14 of 22 reactors under international safeguards, Burns said, and has pledged to put its future civilian reactors under permanent safeguards. The agreement, he said, ``will allow India for the very first time in the life of its nuclear program ... to be able to submit itself in a transparent way for international inspections. We think this is a major, major gain for the nonproliferation community.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 32 Guardian Unlimited: Drumbeat sounds familiar Columnists | Simon Tisdall Tuesday March 7, 2006 The Guardian George Bush's explanation of his volte-face over a proposed Iran-India gas pipeline project appeared slightly disingenuous. "Our beef with Iran is not the pipeline," the US president said on Saturday after withdrawing previous objections and giving the go-ahead to Washington's new friends in Delhi. "Our beef with Iran is the fact that they want to develop a nuclear weapon." But US fears about Iranian nukes, discussed in Vienna yesterday, are hardly the whole story. Washington is compiling a dossier of grievances against Tehran similar in scope and seriousness to the pre-war charge-sheet against Iraq. Other complaints include Iranian meddling in Iraq, support for Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon, and human rights abuses. Mr Bush regularly urges Iranians to seize the "freedom they seek and deserve". In Tehran's ministries, that sounds like a call for regime change. He has ignored past Iranian offers of talks and tightened US economic sanctions. Official Washington's quickening drumbeat of hostility is beginning to recall political offensives against Libya's Muammar Gadafy, Panama's Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, which all ended in violence. Rightwing American media are urging action, deeming Iran "an intolerable threat" that is the "central crisis of the Bush presidency". As was the case with Iraq, administration tub-thumping is influencing public opinion - notwithstanding subsequent debunking of many of its Iraq claims. Polls suggest many Americans are now convinced Iran is the new public enemy No 1. Forty-seven percent told Zogby International they favoured military action to halt its nuclear activities. While hopes of avoiding confrontation are not yet dead, warnings by John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, that Iran could face "painful consequences" over its nuclear activities were a reminder of Mr Bush's repeated refusals to eschew armed force. Iranian officials believe the US is determined to undermine and if possible overthrow Iran's theocracy and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government - regardless of whether a nuclear compromise is reached. That helps explain Tehran's hardline negotiating stance. They cite a US decision to spend $75m (Ł43m) on funding potential Iranian opposition forces, including NGOs, trade unions and human rights groups, and local language propaganda broadcasts - tactics pioneered in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. Iran accuses the US of stirring discontent among its Kurdish, Baluch and Azeri minorities, suspicions fed by a US marine corps investigation to gauge the strength of opposition to the central government among non-Persian groups. Tehran also believes the US is using the People's Mujahideen, an anti-regime group once backed by Saddam and blamed for many terrorist attacks, for intelligence-gathering and destabilisation. It recently demanded British troops quit Basra after linking them to unrest among Arab Iranians in Khuzestan, abutting south-east Iraq. Britain has rejected the claims. The "EU three" - Britain, France and Germany - remain focused on the nuclear controversy rather than broader Iran-related issues. A senior British official said they would, if necessary, support "graduated" pressure on Iran via the UN security council, "possibly leading to trade restrictions or more likely, travel and financial sanctions on individuals". But the official said the Europeans "do not have a clear view of what we will do at a later stage" should Iran refuse to bend. In the absence of a Vienna breakthrough, this lack of an agreed strategy may encourage US hawks, egged on by Israel, to seize the initiative - even at the risk of an Iraq-style split with Europe. They have been biding their time for three years. Now they want action. For starters, Mr Bolton is expected to seek a 30-day UN deadline for Iran to back down or face counter-measures. Email s.tisdall@guardian.co.uk Useful links United Nations European Union US government [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 33 Bellona: European Union intends to develop renewable sources of energy more active According to Austrian Ambassador in Russia Martin Vukovich, European Union intends to develop renewable sources of energy 2006-03-07 11:21 “Energy effectiveness and alternative sources of energy development is the main goal”, said the Ambassador on the Round Table meeting about energy problems in Russian State Duma. He underlined that European experts have been insisting on more effective and wide application of nuclear, solar and wind energy, RIA “Novosti” reported. According to Vukovich, summit of European countries is to consider problems of new routes for liquid gas transportation and alternative energy development. “After this summit we will be ready to discuss these matters with our partners and first of all, Russia”, he said. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 34 Independent: Brussels set to unveil ¬1 trillion energy plan By Stephen Castle in Brussels Published: 08 March 2006 A continent-wide electricity and gas grid, more open energy markets, a new regulator and ¬1 trillion (Ł684bn) investment over the next two decades emerge today as key ambitions of the European Commission's energy policy. A green paper on energy will highlight the importance of diversifying the EU's energy supply and of forging a "common approach" towards dealing with Russia, the bloc's most important energy supplier. Today's document, launched by the European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, comes amid rising concern over utility mergers in France and Spain designed to ward off takeovers from other European companies The paper highlights weaknesses in the single market, saying differences among EU countries over their approach to competition are "preventing the development of a truly competitive European market". The extent to which transmission and distribution are unbundled varies from state to state, meaning markets are "open to fair and free competition to differing degrees", it says, adding that if implementing current directives proves ineffective, further measures "should be considered". Efforts to forge an effective single market with a European electricity and gas grid may require a new energy regulator, the document argues. It also suggests the creation of a European Energy Supply Observatory to monitor the needs of the 25-nation bloc and analyse trends. In addition to a better-functioning energy market, the Commission highlights the need for more investment to improve infrastructure, build new interconnectors and develop new sources of energy. It does not pretend that providing energy security will come cheaply. The document argues that "in Europe alone, to meet expected energy demands and to replace ageing infrastructures, investments of about 1 trillion will be needed over the next 20 years". Neutral on the benefits of nuclear power, the document calls for greater energy efficiency and puts new emphasis on renewable sources. It also raises the possibility of a target for low-carbon energy. The paper, to be discussed at a meeting of EU heads of government this month, reflects the growing political and economic importance of energy. Last year Tony Blair surprised many when he backed the idea of a common EU energy policy before a summit of European leaders at Hampton Court. About half of the EU's energy needs are met by imports at present, a figure that will increase to 70 per cent in the next 20 to 50 years on current trends. © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 35 [NYTr] UK: Brit Plan for New Civil Nuke Pgm Appraoches Meltdown Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 12:34:23 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Simon McGuinness [It appears that London Mayor, Ken Livingston, is to follow Cuba's lead in decentralising electricity generation within that capital city. Now if only the UK government could be persuaded to apply this thinking to the rest of the country and to adopt the other Cuban measures to improve on energy efficiency, there might be a real chance of avoiding an expansion of the US's much criticised civil nuclear industry. - SMcG] The Independent - 07 March 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article349711.ece Plan for new nuclear programme approaches meltdown after report By Michael Harrison, and Michael McCarthy Tony Blair's backing for nuclear power suffered a blow yesterday when the Government's own advisory body on sustainable development came down firmly against the building of a new generation of reactors. Despite the Prime Minister's well-known support for the nuclear industry, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) concluded that a new nuclear programme was not the answer to the twin challenges of climate change and security of supply. In a hard-hitting report, the 15-strong Commission identified five "major disadvantages" to nuclear power: * The lack of a long-term strategy for dealing with highly toxic nuclear waste * Uncertainty over the cost of new nuclear stations and the risk that taxpayers would be left to pick up the tab; * The danger that going down the nuclear route would lock the UK into a centralised system for distributing energy for the next 50 years; * The risk a new nuclear programme would undermine efforts to improve energy efficiency; * The threat of terrorist attacks and radiation exposure if other countries with lower safety standards also opt for nuclear. Nuclear power generates 20 per cent of the UK's electricity but, by 2020, that will have shrunk to 7 per cent and, by 2035, the last of the current generation of stations will have closed, potentially leaving the UK highly dependent on imported gas. But instead of sanctioning a new nuclear programme, the SDC urged Mr Blair to back a further expansion of renewable power, fresh measures to promote energy efficiency and the development of new technologies such as "carbon capture" to tackle the environmental threat posed by fossil-fuelled stations. The commission's report comes just three months before the Government publishes the results of its latest energy review, which is widely expected to pave the wave for a new generation of nuclear stations. Sir Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the commission, said: "Instead of hurtling along to a pre-judged conclusion (which many fear the Government is intent on doing) we must look to the evidence. There's little point in denying that nuclear power has its benefits but, in our view, these are outweighed by serious disadvantages. The Government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix to our climate change and energy crises - there simply isn't one." The commission said that even if the UK's existing nuclear capacity was doubled, it would only lead to an 8 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels. By contrast, renewable energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and biomass, which are zero-carbon sources of energy, could supply 68-87 per cent of the country's electricity needs if fully exploited. Sir Jonathon added that opting for the "big-bang fix" of a new nuclear programme would jeopardise public-sector support for renewable power. It would also undermine efforts to improve energy efficiency, which the report estimates could reduce UK energy demand by as much as 30 to 40 per cent and cut carbon emissions by 20 million tons a year - equivalent to the output of 27 power stations. Sir Jonathon said, that among the commission's 15 members, eight had come down against nuclear power, five had concluded it was not yet time for a new programme and two had said there was "maybe" a case for more reactors. He also took a sideswipe at other well-known environmentalists such as James Lovelock who backs nuclear power. "No one person should be accorded that over-arching credibility in the face of the evidence before us," he said. The environmental pressure groups Friends of the Earth welcomed the commission's findings. Its director, Tony Juniper, said: "Tony Blair and his Government must now seize the historic opportunity presented by the energy review to set the UK on course to becoming a world leader in developing a low-carbon, nuclear free economy." The Energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, who is leading the review, gave a guarded reaction, saying: "As the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white issue. It does, however, agree that it is right we are assessing the potential contribution of new nuclear." Philip Dewhurst, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, voiced his "disappointment" at the report's findings but said he was pleased that the commission had confirmed nuclear as a low carbon source of energy, recognised its improved safety record and only voted by 8-7 to rule out new reactors. Meanwhile, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone unveiled plans to revolutionise the capital's energy supply system to fight climate change. London is to spend many millions of pounds "decentralising" its electricity supplies - switching from giant power stations to much smaller units, generating power locally - by joining forces with the energy multi-national EDF to develop local electricity generating sites and networks across the capital. The commission's report warns that this is just the kind of development that would be compromised if the UK went down the nuclear route. The five key objections Waste No long-term solutions for the disposal of nuclear waste, such as the spent fuel from atomic power stations, are yet available, let alone acceptable to the public, the report says. Nuclear waste is dangerous, hard to manage, and long-lasting in its effects. For example, the half-life of plutonium is 24,000 years. The pressure group Friends of the Earth once produced a poster showing a Roman centurion with the caption: "If the Romans had had nuclear power, we'd still be guarding their waste." Cost The economics of building new nuclear power stations are highly uncertain, the report says. It adds there is little, if any, justification for public subsidy, but if costs escalate there's a clear risk that the taxpayer will have to pick up the tab. The capital costs of building stations are colossal and can swing wildly with project overruns and increases in interest rates. And do you factor in the enormous costs of decommissioning the stations at the end of their lives, or not? Inflexibility A new generation of big nuclear power stations would lock the UK into a wasteful, centralised electricity distribution system for the next 50 years. What is needed is the much less wasteful micro-generation (small local power stations) and local distribution networks. Micro-generation is an idea whose time has come: only yesterday, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said the capital would seek to combat climate change and cut CO2 emissions with a massive switch to generating power locally. Security If the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we cannot deny other countries the same technology. With lower safety standards, they run higher risks of accidents, radiation exposure, proliferation and terrorist attacks. The security risks of any given nuclear power programme are hard to quantify, but no one would deny that they exist - for example in the movement of reactor-grade fuel or spent fuel, which might be seized by terrorists for potential use in a "dirty bomb". Efficiency A new nuclear power programme would send out a signal that a major technological fix is all that is required, says the report, and hurt efforts to encourage energy efficiency. This has largely been the approach of the Bush administration to climate change. Environmentalists would contend that this is a dangerous delusion, and that technical fixes such as nuclear power do nothing about the long-term problem. Only changing the energy system profoundly will make a real difference. *** The Independent - 05 March 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article349344.ece Britain is worst in Europe for power station pollution By Geoffrey Lean Britain is Europe's worst polluter, with 18 of the continent's 50 filthiest power stations, which are responsible for killing more than 7,600 people a year, a new report concludes. The report, which will enhance the country's reputation as the "dirty man of Europe", says Britain has nearly three times as many of the worst air polluters as its nearest rival. Poland has seven, the Czech Republic six, Spain five and Germany four. Compiled by a British environmental consultancy for the Secretariat on Acid Rain, a Swedish organisation, it comes to its devastating conclusion after studying details of emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from 6,600 plants in the 25 European Union countries, plus Norway and Switzerland. Using official EU calculations of the effects of the pollution, it concludes that the 18 plants kill a total of 7,660 Europeans every year, mainly from heart and respiratory diseases. This amounts to one in 10 of the deaths caused by all the plants studied. One reason for Britain's poor performance has been its reluctance to use clean-up technology. For many years only one power station in the country - Drax - had installed FGD equipment to cut sulphur pollution, compared to more than 140 in Europe. The technology is now being fitted to most coal-fired power stations. Scottish Power said it "meets the stringent air quality standards set by the EU and UK authorities". In a comment echoed by the Association of Electricity Producers, it called the report "simplistic, scaremongering and absurd as it is impossible to individualise impacts from long-range pollutants in a modern industrial society". * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 36 NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting Notice FR Doc 06-2190 [Federal Register: March 7, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 44)] [Notices] [Page 11454] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07mr06-92] Agency Holding the Meetings: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Dates: Weeks of March 6, 13, 20, 27, April 3, 10, 2006. Place: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Status: Public and closed. Matters To Be Considered: Week of March 6, 2006 There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of March 6, 2006. Week of March 13, 2006--Tentative Monday, March 13, 2006 1:30 p.m. Briefing on Office of Information Services (OIS) Programs, Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting), (Contact: Edward Baker, 301- 415-8700) This meeting will be Web cast live at the Web address--http://www.nrc.gov . Wednesday, March 15, 2006 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response (NSIR) Programs, Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting), (Contact: Evelyn S. Williams, 301-415-7011) This meeting will be Web cast live at the Web address--http://www.nrc.gov . 1:30 p.m. Discussion on Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1 & 3) Thursday, March 16, 2006 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) Programs, Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting) (Contact: Cynthia Carpenter, 301-415-1275) This meeting will be Web cast live at the Web address--http://www.nrc.gov . Week of March 20, 2006--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of March 20, 2006. Week of March 27, 2006--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of March 27, 2006. Week of April 3, 2006--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of April 3, 2006. Week of April 10, 2006--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week of April 10, 2006. * * * * * *The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on short notice. To verify the status of meetings call (recording)--(301) 415- 1292. Contact person for more information: Michelle Schroll, (301) 415- 1662. * * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the Internet at: http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html. * * * * * The NRC provides reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities where appropriate. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in these public meetings, or need this meeting notice or the transcript or other information from the public meetings in another format (e.g. braille, large print), please notify the NRC's Disability Program Coordinator, Deborah Chan, at 301-415-7041, TDD: 301-415-2100, or by e-mail at DLC@nrc.gov. Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis. * * * * * This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301-415-1969). In addition, distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic message to dkw@nrc.gov. Dated: March 2, 2006. R. Michelle Schroll, Office of the Secretary. [FR Doc. 06-2190 Filed 3-3-06; 2:11 pm] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M ***************************************************************** 37 Guardian Unlimited: Don't build nuclear plants, green advisers tell Blair David Adam, environment correspondent Tuesday March 7, 2006 The Guardian Britain can meet its climate change targets and satisfy growing energy demand without building a new generation of nuclear power stations, according to a wide-ranging report from the government's green advisers. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) said yesterday there was "no justification" for a new nuclear programme - a position that could prove an obstacle for Tony Blair, who is believed to favour new nuclear plants. The SDC's report will feed into a review of the government's energy policies, which is weighing up the nuclear option and is expected to report in the summer. Sir Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the SDC, said: "Our advice to the government is that there is no justification for bringing forward plans for a new nuclear programme at this time, and that any such proposal would be incompatible with its own sustainable development strategy." Nuclear power stations produce less carbon dioxide pollution than those burning coal and gas, but concerns over uncertain costs and the long-term disposal of radioactive waste outweigh the possible environmental benefits, he said. Existing nuclear stations generate about 20% of electricity for the UK, and all but one are scheduled to close by 2023. High-profile figures including environmentalist James Lovelock and Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser, have said that replacing them is the only realistic way for Britain to meet energy demand while cutting carbon dioxide emissions. But the SDC report says increased emphasis on energy efficiency and the wider use of renewable sources are a better way to tackle global warming. Doubling the UK's nuclear capacity would lower carbon dioxide emissions by only 8% below 1990 levels by 2035, it says. The government has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. Sir Jonathon said: "We categorically disagree with all those people advising the government that nuclear is necessary." The report warns that a new generation of nuclear power would undermine action to improve energy efficiency in homes and businesses by "implying that a major technological fix is all that's required". It also says massive investment in new nuclear infrastructure would lock the UK into a centralised system to distribute electricity for the next 50 years, threatening the growth in microgeneration technologies such as small-scale wind turbines on people's houses. It also raised issues related to nuclear proliferation and terrorism: "If the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we cannot deny others the same technology [under the UN framework convention on climate change]." Led by a board of 16 commissioners from academic, scientific, business and campaigning backgrounds, the SDC was set up in 2000 to advise the government and reports directly to the prime minister. Its new report is based on eight new research papers which consider effects on the environment, economy and society. Its position is not unanimous: eight of the commissioners gave nuclear an unqualified rejection, with five saying no nuclear now and two saying it should remain an option. Sir Jonathan, a former head of Friends of the Earth, did not vote. The SDC does not rule out a revival of nuclear power in future and says research into new reactor technologies and ways to dispose of the waste should continue. Malcolm Wicks, the minister leading the energy review, said: "No one has ever suggested that nuclear power, or any other individual energy source, could meet all of those challenges. As the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white issue. It does, however, agree that it is right that we are assessing the potential contribution of new nuclear." Alan Duncan, energy spokesman for the Conservatives, said: "This report puts a spanner in the works for the government, who everybody believes has already made up its mind in favour of nuclear. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have an open mind." A poll carried out by Mori and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research showed that 42% of people oppose building nuclear reactors and 34% support it. The survey of 1,491 people found that 60% supported new nuclear as long as renewable energy sources were used at the same time. FAQ: New reactors Why is nuclear back on the agenda? Because of alarm over climate change and the security of gas supplies. All but one of the existing nuclear stations will close by 2023 and ministers are anxious to keep the lights on. So what's stopping them? Fears over cost and how to dispose of the waste. What happens next? Separate strands of research are due to come together in time for a decision this summer. What about safety? The industry says the new reactor designs are much safer. How would we pay for them? Fixed electricity prices, or a so-called nuclear tax, is one option. Useful link Green party of England and Wales Email us Email your comments for publication to politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 38 Daily Yomiuri: Chernobyl accident scars vivid 20 years on Toshiaki Sato Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer [ class=] A helicopter and trucks used for evacuation and firefighting after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident sit abandoned in a field near the reactor site. Nearly 20 years have passed since the explosion at the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, in April 1986. On Feb. 23, with permission from the Ukraine government, I entered the 30-kilometer restricted area surrounding the nuclear plant. Lingering aftereffects of the worst nuclear plant accident in history illustrate how serious the incident was. Radioactive pollution affected an area of 200,000 square kilometers--about half the size of Japan--and the accident discharged 500 times the amount of radioactive material discharged by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. A two-hour drive from Kiev brought me to a checkpoint at the edge of the restricted area beyond a hill and conifer forests. As light snow fell, a radiation dosimeter I brought from Japan indicated 0.13 microsievert per hour, almost the same figure recorded in my Kiev hotel. At an abandoned kindergarten four kilometers from the nuclear plant, the device recorded 10 microsieverts per hour. This figure means that a person would be exposed to nearly 90 times the tolerable limit of radiation for ordinary people, should they live there for a year. Of course, my stay was only brief, so there was no risk, but I still felt anxious watching the dosimeter. Plutonium's half-life--the period it takes for a substance's level of radioactivity to fall to half--is 24,000 years. For cesium and strontium, it is about 30 years. Just when the restrictions on entry to the area can be lifted remains unknown. There should be no residents in the 30-kilometer radius, but about 320 people have ignored the ban, returned to the land and live there. About 7,600 workers remain to maintain the suspended No. 1 to 3 reactors and prevent forest fires. The plant is strictly sealed to prevent terrorists from trying to gain access to the site and visitors are permitted only as close as a wall 300 meters from the so-called sarcophagus covering the No. 4 reactor. The sarcophagus is made of steel beams and concrete to block radiation, but my dosimeter showed more than 10 microsieverts per hour.I did not have to wear protective gear or a mask at the site, but inside the stone coffin, radioactivity levels are so high that people cannot enter 75 percent of the structure. The stone coffin was hurriedly built just after the accident, and its walls lean at an angle and are at risk of collapsing. With aid from Western countries, the stone coffin will be reinforced and a new shelter measuring 110 meters high, about 260 meters wide and about 150 meters across will be built to cover the existing massive concrete lump by 2010. The builder reportedly will be decided soon. The new shelter is expected to last for more than 100 years, and the stone coffin will be demolished inside the new shelter. Disposal of a large quantity of nuclear fuel that has seeped into the ground will remain a problem to be dealt with by future generations. "Today's technology can't recover and dispose of the nuclear fuel safely," said Philippe Convert, supervisor of the construction plan. "We'll have to wait for at least 50 years [for such technology]." Returning to the checkpoint, I saw rusty wrecks of helicopters and trucks in a large field about the size of seven or eight soccer pitches. A superintendent wearing a camouflage uniform said up to 3,000 wrecks lay rusting in the field. Storage sites for radioactive waste were surrounded by barbed wire and blanketed by a thin layer of snow. The area was deadly silent. The Chernobyl accident occurred on April 26, 1986, while a special test was being conducted in the No. 4 reactor. The explosion destroyed most of the building housing the reactor. Safety regulations were neglected during the test and the reactor had structural faults. A U.N. report in autumn last year said about 60 fatalities were confirmed as a result of the accident and estimated 3,940 people will die in coming years. But Ukraine and other affected countries criticized the report as underestimating the true toll. (Mar. 8, 2006) © The Yomiuri Shimbun. ***************************************************************** 39 Bellona: Is there an alternative to a new Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant? ST. PETERSBURG—As the engineered life-spans of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant’s (LNPP) reactors near their ends in 2018, nuclear authorities in Russia have announced their intentions to build a new LNPP-2, despite ecologists’ objections that building the second nuclear power plant is unnecessary to meet Russia’s energy needs. The Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant. Viktor Teryoshkin/Bellona Vera Ponomareva, 2006-03-07 12:33 Instead, ecologists suggest that modernising St. Petersburg’s thermo-electrical plants will be one and a half times cheaper than building a new nuclear plant on the site of the LNPP. The LNPP—located 70 kilometres west of St. Petersburg—uses four fatally flawed RBMK-1000 reactors, the type that exploded in Chernobyl in 1986. The engineered life span for the LNPP’s first reactor block expired in 2003, but it was not taken out of service. After modernisations—and without any environmental impact study—the reactor’s term of service was extended. Now, the LNPP is gearing up to extend the engineered life span of its second block. Extending the terms of use of the aged reactors at the LNPP is not an isolated case. In 2001 through 2005, the engineered life spans of reactor blocks No. 3 and 4 at the Novovoronezh NPP—which are VVER-440 reactors—and the Kola NPP’s No. 1 and 2 reactor blocks, also VVER-440s, were extended. Furthermore, extending their terms of service costs 20 percent of what it costs to build a new reactor block. All of these reactors are still in service, pumping out radioactive waste, despite the fact that Russia already has significant problems with storing spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The Murmansk Regional Prosecutor has said that the licenses to extend the service terms of the Kola NPP reactors are illegal. As the Murmansk Regional Prosecutors’ Office told Bellona Web earlier this year, “an investigation on the adherence to legislation on environmental impact studies is planned” for the Russian technical oversight body Rostekhnadzor, and for the Russian nature oversight body, Rosprirodnadzor. After extensions Given that the service term for the LNPP’s No. 1 reactor block will expire in 2018, followed by block No. 2 in 2020, nuclear authorities intend to build a new replacement plant with two VVER-1500 reactors. This radical decision—despite the mounting problems of storing radioactive waste and SNF—was taken without any public consultation. Meanwhile, in the opinion of environmentalists, building a new NPP is not the only solution to the problem of dwindling energy supplies. The LNPP can be replaced with other energy sources that will cost many times less. According to Igor Babanin, Greenpeace’s St. Petersburg co-ordinator, “the simplest and most primitive solution is to substitute the power of the LNPP with windmills, but no one has considered that.” The first step in eschewing nuclear energy, said Babanin, could be the modernisation of existing thermo-electrical plants that operate on natural gas to improve their effectiveness. “As a result of modernising, thermo-electrical plants could produce one and a half times more energy by consuming the same amount of raw material. This would allow for the substitution of at least one reactor block at the [LNPP],” said Babanin in an interview with Bellona Web. Oleg Bodrov, chairman of Sosnovy Bor’s Green World environmental group said in an interview with Bellona Web that: “To decide this issue, it is necessary to work out a new energy strategy.” Sosnovy Bor, on the Gulf of Finland, is home to the LNPP. According to Bodrov, improving the effectiveness of already existing gas-run thermo-electrical plants and adopting the energy saving technology is the first priority in developing a new energy strategy. LNPP-2 At the end of last year, energy giant Rosenergoatom—which runs Russia’ civilian nuclear power plants—announced its intentions to built a plant to replace the power of the LNPP. According to Rosenergoatom’s announcement, the first reactor block at LNPP-2 will go on line in about 2013, followed by the second in 2016. Each block will cost some 44 billion ($146 m). By 2025, it is planned to have four new reactors operating at LNPP-2. Altogether, Rosatom head Sergei Kirienko plans to build 40 new reactors in Russia over the next 25 years at a cost of $60 billion. Such grandiose plans raise sceptical eyebrows, if only because Rosenergoatom has only managed to build three new reactors in the last 15 years—the No. 4 block at the Balakovo NPP completed in 1994, the No.1 block at the Rostov NPP in 2001, and the No. 3 block at the Kalinin NPP in 2005. According to Greenpeace estimates, Rosenergoatom can introduce only 1 gigawatt every three years into new energy production. St. Petersburg’s thermo-electrical stations The majority of St. Petersburg’s thermo-electrical plants were built at the beginning of the last century. Many of them are operating on hopelessly outdated equipment. The old stations still produce energy on steam turbine installations. The coefficient of useful activity of these turbines amounts to 25 to 39 percent, while contemporary technology, based on the steam-gas cycle can raise this coefficient to 58 percent and, in this manner, get one and a half times more energy. A gas turbine by Siemens at the Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant. Vera Ponomareva/Bellona The Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant According to Anatoly Chubais, head of Russia’s United Energy Systems (UES), all plants in Russia should switch over the steam-gas cycle, but such a process could take 10 years. But such contemporary thermo-electrical plants in Russia are few. The Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant, built in 2000 on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, was the first of these to be constructed. UES is the plant’s majority shareholder at 66.4 percent, and the plant is run by the Italian-Russia consortium ENEL ECN Energo. Additionally, the construction of the South-Western Thermo-Electrical Plant, with a 540 megawatt output, is slated to begin in St. Petersburg in the near future. The first units of the station are planned to come online toward the end of 2007 and, after construction is complete by 2009 or 2010, the plant will be operating at full capacity. “Our technological cycle is combined. At the first stage, electrical energy is produced with the use of gas turbines—these turbines essentially resemble those found on a jet air plane,” Giorgio Cimini, director of the Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant told Bellona Web. “And further, the remaining heat is used for producing steam, which makes the traditional steam turbines work.” A steam turbine at the Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant. Vera Ponomareva/Bellona The first energy block of the Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant, with a 450 megawatt output, is now on line. However, 90 percent of the electricity that it produces goes to Finland. The remaining 10 percent goes into the Russian grid. In December 2006, the second block of the plant is slated to go on line and will produce energy for the domestic market. The Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant does not currently produce heat. The construction of heating mainlines connecting boilers in the Primorsky section of St. Petersburg to the plant are to be completed by autumn 2006. The plant’s combined energy blocks will produce some 700 giga-calories per hour. According to Cimini, the plant could replace several boilers in the Primorsky section of the city. “Instead of spending money on modernising boilers, it is far cheaper to take heat from us. But the decision about which boilers will remain, and which are kept in reserve, is up to the state run Thermo-Electrical Company. Comparative construction expenditures Building a contemporary gas-steam thermal electrical installation is significantly cheaper than building a reactor block. According to Cimini the second block at the Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant will cost 10 billion roubles ($330m). The capital investments in the construction of the steam-gas turbine at the Tyumen Thermo-Electrical Plant was $515 per kilowatt, versus the $950 per kilowatt that nuclear officials estimate for the construction of a nuclear power block. The price difference is actually even greater, as prices listed on paper are usually significantly reduced. This was proven by a St. Petersburg University study presented in September 2005 at a Rosatom conference. One eye-catching example in the report was that the construction of the No. 3 reactor block at the Kalinin NPP cost $1.1 billion instead of the $400m estimate. “Unfortunately, there are no other examples, and the insistence with which “Rosenergoatom” continues to defend the rate of average specific expenditures at $850 per kilowatt looks, to say the least, strange,” the report said. To recoup the expenses on such expensive construction is, in principle, impossible, the report said. A gas economy? Nuclear officials promise that by 2030 Russia can save 150 billion cubic meters of gas a year thanks to nuclear energy. However, Greenpeace’s Babanin said these calculations are incorrect: The calculations are based on the notion the coefficient of useful activity from gas-powered stations will remain at 26 to 39 percent, and do not account for the additional profit from heat that thermo-electric plants will earn. Greenhouse gas emissions and radioactive waste One of the arguments for the development of Russia’s nuclear industry is the absence of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Gas powered thermo-electrical plants produce carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide. “In comparison to traditional thermo-electrical plants, ours is very contemporary and we have the fewest number of issues regarding the environment,” Cimini said. According to Cimini, CO 2 emissions from the Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant are 20 to 30 percent less than those emitted by plants using only steam powered turbines. The Northwest Thermo-Electrical Plant emits 700 tonnes of nitrogen oxide per year, which is well under the established maximum of 5,000 tonnes per year. It also emits 100 tonnes of CO 2 —fully 2,400 tonnes less the allowable limit. Emissions measurements are carried out by a specially licensed laboratory that passes its data on to government agencies. “It is understood that nuclear power plants don’t have emissions of this nature in general,” said Cimini. Indeed, the LNPP does not produce such a quantity of atmospheric emissions. However, the fact that using nuclear fuel creates highly dangerous radioactive waste that will remain so for tens of thousands of years cannot be discounted. The half life of plutonium, for instance, is 24,000 years, and its radioactivity reaches safe levels only after 10 to 15 of these half life cycles. Problems of storing radioactive waste in the near term, to say nothing of long term permanent storage, have yet to be solved. Aside from this, the decommissioning of nuclear power plants encompasses many social, financial and technological problems, and Rosenergoatom has only recently started to salt away money to deal with these issues. According to a 1997 government decree, Rosenergoatom is required to set aside 1.3 percent of the money it makes producing nuclear energy for nuclear power plant decommissioning. However, a 2003 Audit Chamber report indicated the company had not earmarked any money for this purpose. Beginning in 2002, money began to appear in the decommissioning fund, but according to Rostekhnadzor head Andrei Malyshev, funding is not piling up in this account and is being spent for work on already decommissioned reactors. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 40 BBC: Chapelcross comes to a crossroads Last Updated: Tuesday, 7 March 2006 By Giancarlo Rinaldi BBC Scotland news website South of Scotland reporter [Chapelcross towers] The four towers at Chapelcross will come down this year The towers of the Chapelcross nuclear plant have been part of the landscape near Annan for almost half a century. They will disappear this year as the power station - which closed in 2004 - enters a decommissioning process which will last for decades. The community in the area surrounding the plant has been weighing up the economic and environmental impact. A range of future options - from a research centre to a new nuclear plant - have been put under the microscope. A key organisation in mapping out what local people would like to see replace the four-reactor site is the Chapelcross Stakeholders Group. "What it has given to the area over a lot of years is good quality jobs and a lot of income into the area," said chairperson Ian Lindsay. "I think, in reality, that in all of the areas that have got nuclear power stations the feelings are very much the same - they would like new nuclear power stations there." Chapelcross factfile Built on former Secon World War airfield Scotland's first commercial nuclear power station Officially opened May, 1959 Four-reactor Magnox power station Ceased generation 2004 At the very least, they want to see the site left in a condition to allow the construction of a new station. Chapelcross' Labour councillor Sean Marshall, who also works at the plant, reckons there are good arguments for its continued use. "It has been there for nearly 50 years, it has got good infrastructure, it is a licensed site and it has got widespread community support," he said. That is a view echoed by Lib Dem councillor Tony Turner whose ward covers the heart of nearby Annan. "It just makes common sense to think about a smaller plant or something similar," he said. "These are well-paid, professional jobs and any shutdown or loss of jobs is going to have an impact on the local economy." That potential impact prompted Scottish Enterprise Dumfries and Galloway and partner groups to form an organisation to look at the effect on the area around Annan, Gretna and Lockerbie. The Corridor Regeneration Strategy (CoReS) steering group wants diversification of the Chapelcross site to be a top priority - a view backed by south of Scotland Green MSP Chris Ballance. [Chapelcross towers] A number of different proposals are being studied for the plant "In the long term future, I would encourage the development of some sort of institute of nuclear decommissioning using both Chapelcross and the skills of the workers there," he said. Dumfries' Labour MSP Dr Elaine Murray, however, recently pushed for her party to allow for the possibility of new nuclear builds. "The arguments of those who oppose nuclear power are 20 years out of date," she said. "The new technologies are far safer and produce only a small fraction of the waste produced by the old power stations like Chapelcross." Labour colleague, Dumfries and Galloway MP Russell Brown, has more reservations about a nuclear future. "I think, in all honesty, the site definitely has a future that is energy-related but whether that will be nuclear is, to a certain extent, questionable," he said. Chapelcross is now owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) which says it will be guided by local opinion in deciding the future. The feelings of stakeholder groups will be fed through to government before it ultimately makes the decision on what will replace those familiar towers and the rest of the plant. ***************************************************************** 41 BBC: Scotland 'should get nuclear say' Last Updated: Tuesday, 7 March 2006 [Hunterston B power station] The future of Scotland's nuclear capacity is up for debate Holyrood should have the final say on approving any new or upgraded nuclear power projects, according to a poll carried out for BBC Scotland. At present, energy policy is reserved to Westminster but the Scottish Executive has powers over planning. But the poll found 82% of people wanted the Scottish Executive to decide on nuclear power, compared to 13% who wanted it to be a UK Government choice. The ICM survey of 1007 adults forms part of BBC Scotland's Energy Week. Who should take nuclear decision? It also found that 56% of people trusted the Scottish Executive to tell them the truth about the safety of nuclear power, while only 31% trusted Westminster. People don't want to pay absolute fortune for their energy and nuclear has got to play a part in that Anne Moffat Labour MP Labour MP Anne Moffat said the decision had to be made in conjunction between the UK parliament and Scottish parliamentarians. Ms Moffat told BBC Radio's Scotland at 10 programme: "The real issue for me is security of supply and I don't think there is anyone in Scotland or the wider UK that wants to be in the position of switching the light on and nothing happening." She added: "People don't want to pay an absolute fortune for their energy and nuclear has got to play a part in that, it already provides 50% of the electricity in Scotland." However, Scottish National Party energy spokesman Richard Lochhead insisted that Scotland was the most energy rich country in Europe. On economic grounds t situation doesn't stack up Jeremy Purvis Liberal Democrat MSP He said: "At the current time we export nearly 20% of electricity outwith Scotland because we produce so much and yet we operate under capacity. "There's no need for nuclear in Scotland, we have a vast wealth of resources." Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone argued that Scotland was already reliant on nuclear power. Mr Johnstone said: "At the end of their lifetimes our existing nuclear power stations should be replaced with newer, safer, nuclear power stations which produce significantly less waste than the ones we rely on at the moment." Liberal Democrat MSP Jeremy Purvis rejected the case for nuclear. He said: "On economic grounds the situation doesn't stack up - in America the Bush administration wants to have new nuclear but it's offering massive tax subsidies to attract private companies to do that. "And on the waste grounds there are still substantial questions and until they are answered it is right to say that we would not support new nuclear power stations." ***************************************************************** 42 BBC: Who should take nuclear decision? Last Updated: Tuesday, 7 March 2006 By Brian Taylor BBC Scotland political editor [Pylons] A full-scale review of future energy generation is under way Who should decide? Who should have the final say on whether Scotland sanctions a new generation of nuclear power stations? The obvious answer? The people. But how will that popular will be expressed, under devolved democracy? Through the UK Parliament at Westminster? Or the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood? When Donald Dewar and his team were steering the content of the devolution White Paper past sceptical Westminster Cabinet colleagues, they frequently confronted the issue of shared power or unintended consequences. You'll remember that devolution was designed to work by reserving a designated set of powers to Westminster - the broad economy, foreign affairs, defence and the rest - before boldly stating that anything not thus reserved was, by definition, devolved. The prime minister has ma clear, vigorously and repeatedly, that he believes this review must pay close attention to new nuclear generation as a serious option Scotland 'should get nuclear say' But the Westminster Cabinet had to face the question of what happened when those reserved and devolved powers clashed. There was prolonged discussion, for example, over the potential for discord in promoting industrial development. Who had the final say? Behind the scenes, there have been tensions over who speaks for Scottish interests in the European Union. Foreign affairs, including Europe, are reserved to Westminster. Yet it is acknowledged in the White Paper that Scottish ministers will expect to have a voice in Brussels, albeit within the common UK policy position. It is a scrupulous fudge which, mostly, can be made to work. So far. Energy review The energy debate - and especially the nuclear question - presents a different challenge. That is because it does not appear, presently, that a common UK position is credible or possible. The UK Government has instigated an energy review. The prime minister has made clear, vigorously and repeatedly, that he believes this review must pay close attention to new nuclear generation as a serious option. Energy is reserved to Westminster as a policy issue. The PM will have his way. QED. Except. Planning powers are devolved to Holyrood. (Strictly, they are exercised by local government but, over such a big issue, it would be Scottish Executive ministers who would decide.) [Dounreay] The issue of nuclear waste still has to be decided So the UK Government can say: we endorse nuclear power and the building of a new generation of atomic plants. But the Scottish Executive can say: build your new plants, by all means, but not in Scotland. We will refuse. Within the executive, of course, it is the Liberal Democrats who are most vigorous in opposing nuclear generation. The formal executive position is that there will be no new plants in Scotland unless and until the issue of waste disposal is resolved. Here the parties divide. The LibDems do not believe the waste question will be resolved. They believe that Scotland should, in effect, make life difficult for herself by turning down the "easy option" of new nuclear. Many Labour MSPs, includi influential ministers, do not believe that renewables, while worthy, can fill the gap That, they say, would drive the pace on obliging Scotland to pursue renewables like wind, wave, tidal and solar. Scotland, again they say, could be a world leader in renewables. Many Labour MSPs, including influential ministers, do not believe that renewables, while worthy, can fill the gap. They believe that Scotland will need new nuclear generation. Otherwise, they say we will be dependent on external supplies, including from potentially unreliable foreign countries. The recent Scottish Labour conference voted to endorse new nuclear generation. So our poll findings are intriguing. Decision time In Question Four, respondents were asked to choose who should have the "final say" on whether or not new nuclear power stations should be built in Scotland. By a very substantial majority, they opted for the devolved Scottish Executive - ahead of the UK Government. In total, 82% of respondents in our sample said the executive should decide. By contrast, just 13% wanted the decision taken by the UK Government. That opinion was shared across the gender divide and throughout the age range. [Wind farm] Wind farms are becoming a more common sight Not surprisingly, SNP voters were most inclined to favour the Edinburgh option while Conservative voters generated the lowest majority in favour of the executive. But even Tory voters favoured Edinburgh by two-to-one. Everyone, it seems, wants this decision in the hands of the devolved administration. Why? Well, some may simply feel that this is a matter for Scotland alone. Some may suspect that the executive, given its current stance, would be inclined to be more quizzical about nuclear generation. You'll recall that other indications from our poll suggested that Scots were instinctively sceptical about nuclear power. Women in particular favoured that approach. Scots might be convinced nuclear if it could be shown that we would otherwise be dependent on potentially unreliable overseas supplies And, in Question Four, it is women who are notably keen on giving that decision to the executive, perhaps in anticipation that their wider views on nuclear power will find more support there. But arguably Question Five gives us a further clue. Here, respondents were asked whom they trusted to tell the truth about the safety or otherwise of nuclear power. Two thirds or 66% were inclined to believe official scientists. Just behind that were academic experts, with 64% placing faith in them. Next came the Scottish Executive, with 56% trust: lower admittedly than for the scientists but still a majority. But look down the list. Environmental experts were trusted by 47%. The UK Government was further back still, with 31% prepared to place their faith in the word from Whitehall and Westminster. That is below one third of the sample and a full 25 points behind the trust placed in the executive over this issue. Only energy companies, with 23%, had a lower ranking on this point. The review continues. The debate continues. And, as other findings indicate, Scots might be convinced by nuclear if it could be shown that we would otherwise be dependent on potentially unreliable overseas supplies. But right now it would seem that Scots are intuitively sceptical about new nuclear generation - and not inclined to place their trust in the UK Government over the issue. ***************************************************************** 43 Energy Business Review: Bulgarian power plant deal would make long term sense for CEZ - 6th March 2006 By EBR Staff Writer On the face of it the decision by the Czech Republic's CEZ to bid for a coal fired power plant in Bulgaria may appear to be a somewhat questionable strategy given Bulgaria's current lack of competitive intensity and every tightening environmental standards. However, in the longer term the deal is a much more judicious move than it might initially appear. Recent signals from the Bulgarian government indicate that Czech power company CEZ has begun negotiations to buy the Varna coal fired power plant in Bulgaria. Whilst exact details remain unconfirmed, it is understood that the company has made a of E192 million bid for the 1,260 MW facility. On the face of it the decision to enter the Bulgarian market may not appear to be a particularly judicious move for CEZ, particularly given the easier commercial opportunities currently materializing elsewhere in central and eastern Europe. However, beneath the surface, there are a number of longer term advantages that the deal will bring to CEZ that make Varna a potentially lucrative longer term investment. A cursory examination of the Bulgarian market indicates that it is less than attractive for market entry at the current time given its lack of competitive intensity and the basic stage of liberalization so far achieved. It scores very much at the lower end of Datamonitor's market competitive intensity index assessments that score the attractiveness of 20 key gas and power markets to new entrants. However, this in fact may mean that the current price tag of the plant represents exceedingly good value for CEZ. If Bulgaria's ambitions for accession to the EU materialize, the Bulgarian power sector will quickly become more competitive given market opening and liberalization dynamics. Further to this there is the issue of demand growth. In recent years, demand has remained relatively flat in Bulgaria, having grown at an annualized average of just 0.7% over the past five years. Within this context there has been strong demand growth of around 3.2% over the period in the residential sector compared with 2.3% declines in both the industrial and commercial sectors. At just 9% of total demand, the role of power in the industrial sector is surprisingly small, particularly when compared to other central and eastern European markets. This is largely attributable to the widespread use of coal in the industrial sector which results from the country's significant natural resource endowments. As tighter environmental specifications begin to impact Bulgaria, the scope for power to win end user market share from coal appears to be considerable, particularly if clean coal technology is applied at the plant. There is also considerable scope for the Varna plant to boost its share of the generation market in the shorter term. The planned closure of the Kozloduy nuclear facility in 2007 will dramatically reverse Bulgaria's role as a net power exporter and create a need for increased utilization of existing plant to compensate for the lost capacity. Although replacement generation assets, such as the new Belene nuclear reactors in 2011 and 2013 and other thermal output in the shorter term, will replace much of Kozloduy's capacity, much of the short fall will need to be made by plants such as Varna operating at higher load factors. In addition to potential profits from running Varna in the usual way, CEZ may potentially be able to take advantage of the plant's carbon credits. Given the method of calculation used to allocate these credits, Bulgaria has a surfeit of credits to sell indicating that plants such as Varna will be able to trade their individual credits profitably. For these reasons, a deal that seems less than attractive in the short term may in fact be a highly profitable strategy on a number of fronts over the longer term. The Varna acquisition sees CEZ buy a currently undervalued asset with carbon credits in a market with considerable future demand growth, and as such it is clearly a judicious and well thought out move. ©2006 Business Review Ltd ***************************************************************** 44 Rutland Herald: Vibration puts hold on Yankee power increase Rutland Vermont News & Information March 7, 2006 By ROSS SNEYD The Associated Press MONTPELIER — Vibrations detected in the steam system at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have prompted Entergy Nuclear to hold off on further increases in the plant's energy production. The company had completed a 5 percent boost in its electrical output during the weekend when analysis required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded that additional increases should be delayed so the vibrations could be further evaluated. "There's one monitor that the vibration there requires more analysis than the others," said Robert Williams, spokesman for Yankee. "That's built into the plan and the NRC is overseeing this." A regional Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman generally agreed with Williams' characterization of the issue. "If (the vibration) met certain criteria, it caused Entergy to hold the reactor power ascension until their own engineers concluded they could go further," said Diane Screnci. "It's safe for them to stay at their current power level. They'll be completing that further analysis." Entergy won NRC and state permission just last week to boost the amount of power Vermont Yankee can produce by 20 percent. But the federal regulators put in requirements for a series of evaluations and analyses as the plant's power production increased in 5 percent increments. Plant operators were required to send the analyses and engineering data to the NRC and hold at 105 percent of Yankee's previous power output for at least 96 hours as additional analysis was conducted, Screnci said. The NRC received word Sunday that Vermont Yankee had reached 105 percent and that one of those criteria on vibrations had been met, she said. Williams said the power boost began on Saturday. "The plan calls for several days holding there while the vibration levels are analyzed," Williams said. "The extent of analysis that is required is based on the amount of vibration level at each of these monitors. … This will go on for several weeks at each power level." The vibrations were not detected in the part of the plant where the nuclear reaction takes place. Vermont Yankee is a boiling water reactor. The nuclear reaction creates steam that turns the electricity-generating turbine. It was in a steam line leading to the turbine that the vibration was noted, Williams and Screnci said. Neither could say how long the plant would have to hold at its current power level before increasing to 110 percent of its previous output. "That's part of what the engineering analysis that they're doing now is," she said. "They'll look at what it means." ***************************************************************** 45 Independent: Plan for new nuclear programme approaches meltdown after report By Michael Harrison, and Michael McCarthy Published: 07 March 2006 Tony Blair's backing for nuclear power suffered a blow yesterday when the Government's own advisory body on sustainable development came down firmly against the building of a new generation of reactors. Despite the Prime Minister's well-known support for the nuclear industry, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) concluded that a new nuclear programme was not the answer to the twin challenges of climate change and security of supply. In a hard-hitting report, the 15-strong Commission identified five "major disadvantages" to nuclear power: * The lack of a long-term strategy for dealing with highly toxic nuclear waste * Uncertainty over the cost of new nuclear stations and the risk that taxpayers would be left to pick up the tab; * The danger that going down the nuclear route would lock the UK into a centralised system for distributing energy for the next 50 years; * The risk a new nuclear programme would undermine efforts to improve energy efficiency; * The threat of terrorist attacks and radiation exposure if other countries with lower safety standards also opt for nuclear. Nuclear power generates 20 per cent of the UK's electricity but, by 2020, that will have shrunk to 7 per cent and, by 2035, the last of the current generation of stations will have closed, potentially leaving the UK highly dependent on imported gas. But instead of sanctioning a new nuclear programme, the SDC urged Mr Blair to back a further expansion of renewable power, fresh measures to promote energy efficiency and the development of new technologies such as "carbon capture" to tackle the environmental threat posed by fossil-fuelled stations. The commission's report comes just three months before the Government publishes the results of its latest energy review, which is widely expected to pave the wave for a new generation of nuclear stations. Sir Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the commission, said:"Instead of hurtling along to a pre-judged conclusion (which many fear the Government is intent on doing) we must look to the evidence. There's little point in denying that nuclear power has its benefits but, in our view, these are outweighed by serious disadvantages. The Government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix to our climate change and energy crises - there simply isn't one." The commission said that even if the UK's existing nuclear capacity was doubled, it would only lead to an 8 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels. By contrast, renewable energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and biomass, which are zero-carbon sources of energy, could supply 68-87 per cent of the country's electricity needs if fully exploited. Sir Jonathon added that opting for the "big-bang fix" of a new nuclear programme would jeopardise public-sector support for renewable power. It would also undermine efforts to improve energy efficiency, which the report estimates could reduce UK energy demand by as much as 30 to 40 per cent and cut carbon emissions by 20 million tons a year - equivalent to the output of 27 power stations. Sir Jonathon said, that among the commission's 15 members, eight had come down against nuclear power, five had concluded it was not yet time for a new programme and two had said there was "maybe" a case for more reactors. He also took a sideswipe at other well-known environmentalists such as James Lovelock who backs nuclear power. "No one person should be accorded that over-arching credibility in the face of the evidence before us," he said. The environmental pressure groups Friends of the Earth welcomed the commission's findings. Its director, Tony Juniper, said: "Tony Blair and his Government must now seize the historic opportunity presented by the energy review to set the UK on course to becoming a world leader in developing a low-carbon, nuclear free economy." The Energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, who is leading the review, gave a guarded reaction, saying: "As the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white issue. It does, however, agree that it is right we are assessing the potential contribution of new nuclear." Philip Dewhurst, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, voiced his "disappointment" at the report's findings but said he was pleased that the commission had confirmed nuclear as a low carbon source of energy, recognised its improved safety record and only voted by 8-7 to rule out new reactors. Meanwhile, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone unveiled plans to revolutionise the capital's energy supply system to fight climate change. London is to spend many millions of pounds "decentralising" its electricity supplies - switching from giant power stations to much smaller units, generating power locally - by joining forces with the energy multi-national EDF to develop local electricity generating sites and networks across the capital. The commission's report warns that this is just the kind of development that would be compromised if the UK went down the nuclear route. The five key objections Waste No long-term solutions for the disposal of nuclear waste, such as the spent fuel from atomic power stations, are yet available, let alone acceptable to the public, the report says. Nuclear waste is dangerous, hard to manage, and long-lasting in its effects. For example, the half-life of plutonium is 24,000 years. The pressure group Friends of the Earth once produced a poster showing a Roman centurion with the caption: "If the Romans had had nuclear power, we'd still be guarding their waste." Cost The economics of building new nuclear power stations are highly uncertain, the report says. It adds there is little, if any, justification for public subsidy, but if costs escalate there's a clear risk that the taxpayer will have to pick up the tab. The capital costs of building stations are colossal and can swing wildly with project overruns and increases in interest rates. And do you factor in the enormous costs of decommissioning the stations at the end of their lives, or not? Inflexibility A new generation of big nuclear power stations would lock the UK into a wasteful, centralised electricity distribution system for the next 50 years. What is needed is the much less wasteful micro-generation (small local power stations) and local distribution networks. Micro-generation is an idea whose time has come: only yesterday, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said the capital would seek to combat climate change and cut CO2 emissions with a massive switch to generating power locally. Security If the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we cannot deny other countries the same technology. With lower safety standards, they run higher risks of accidents, radiation exposure, proliferation and terrorist attacks. The security risks of any given nuclear power programme are hard to quantify, but no one would deny that they exist - for example in the movement of reactor-grade fuel or spent fuel, which might be seized by terrorists for potential use in a "dirty bomb". Efficiency A new nuclear power programme would send out a signal that a major technological fix is all that is required, says the report, and hurt efforts to encourage energy efficiency. This has largely been the approach of the Bush administration to climate change. Environmentalists would contend that this is a dangerous delusion, and that technical fixes such as nuclear power do nothing about the long-term problem. Only changing the energy system profoundly will make a real difference. © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 46 Greenpeace: Nuclear Power: Boom or Bust? Choose Clean Energy - News 07-03-2006 Over the past fortnight an enormous projection reading "KAPOW!" has materialised on several of the UK's nuclear power stations, highlighting the risk of terrorist attack to nuclear sites. Greenpeace volunteers drove up to the perimeter fences of Dungeness, Sizewell, Wylfa, Oldbury, Heysham and Torness nuclear power stations and projected the cartoon-style image onto the walls. This exposure of the vulnerability of UK nuclear sites comes at a time when Tony Blair is planning to dramatically increase the risk of a catastrophic terrorist attack by building a new generation of nuclear reactors. But just how likely is a nuclear terrorist attack? "Nuclear terrorism is still often treated as science fiction," said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2005. "I wish it were. But unfortunately we live in a world of excess hazardous materials and abundant technological know-how, in which some terrorists clearly state their intention to inflict catastrophic casualties." There have already been six known direct attacks on nuclear power plants - in France, South Africa, Switzerland, the Philippines and Spain. In fact, The International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism documents 167 terrorist incidents involving a nuclear target between 1970 and 1999. According to a taped interview with Al Jazeera, Al Qaeda initially planned to include a nuclear plant in its 2001 attacks. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a confidential memo to all US nuclear power plants warning of plans for a terrorist attack in which hijackers "fly a commercial aircraft into a nuclear power plant".. In the UK, detailed plans of Britain's nuclear sites, including Sizewell, were found in a car linked to the July 2005 London bombings. The results of a terrorist attack on a nuclear power station would be catastrophic; UK nuclear sites aren't built to withstand a deliberate crash by a jumbo jet full of highly explosive aviation fuel. A terrorist strike on Sellafield's storage tanks of radioactive waste has the potential to kill over two million people. A fire in a spent fuel cooling pond at Sizewell B would result in huge releases of radioactivity just 100 miles from London. "Millions of people could die as a result of a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant," said Sarah North, head of Greenpeace's nuclear campaign. "Yet Tony Blair has put the prospect of building these extremely dangerous facilities back on the agenda, seemingly without a thought for the safety of the public. Nuclear power is simply the wrong answer to climate change." The UK is failing to reduce our contribution to climate change; CO2 emissions have actually increased in the last two years. The nuclear industry's lobbyists, desperate to revive their dying trade, have seized on this failure and positioned nuclear power as the magic solution to climate change. While all the evidence shows that nuclear power is an immensely wasteful, dirty and expensive option, Tony Blair seems to have fallen for the nuclear PR campaign. But a solution to climate change does exist. The recently launched WADE report compares an energy system using nuclear power and one using a decentralised system of energy efficiency and renewables, and concludes that not only is the nuclear system dirtier and more dangerous; it also costs over Ł1bn more. To be truly terrified, download the Greenpeace dossier of expert evidence outlining the vulnerability of the UK's current nuclear sites to terrorist attack (pdf, 53k). Watch your worst nightmare unfold in a short film showing a nuclear terrorism scenario. Take action! Make your voice heard now. Write to your MP to say yes to renewables and energy efficiency and no to nukes! ***************************************************************** 47 Greenpeace: Energy Crisis Remedy Unveiled Choose Clean Energy 07-03-2006 [Amsterdam-Amstelplein.jpg] Photo: A small combined heat and power unit provides heat, electricity and cooling to three large office buildings, a school and a small residential area in Amsterdam. Economic Model Shows Route to Lower Carbon Emissions, Less Gas, Lower Costs and No New Nuclear Putting new nuclear power stations at the heart of the UK energy strategy will lead to higher carbon emissions, more reliance on gas and be more expensive when compared to producing energy locally, according to a report released today by Greenpeace. The report, called Decentralising UK Energy, concludes that 'decentralising' power - generating heat and electricity close to where it's needed - will negate any need for nuclear power, as well as being cheaper, less polluting and decreasing the UK's reliance on gas. Based on an economic model which has been recently used by the UK Foreign Office and the European Commission, the report compares two main future scenarios: one in which the UK opts for decentralised energy and one in which nuclear power is pushed forward. The findings show that: + Carbon emissions are 17% lower in the decentralised scenario; + Overall capital costs are ﾣ1billion less in the decentralised scenario than the nuclear scenario, and retail costs of electricity for consumers are lower too. These figures dont include the costs of dealing with nuclear waste, so in reality opting for decentralised energy will be over ﾣ1billion cheaper than nuclear; + UK gas consumption is 14% lower in the decentralised scenario. Decentralised energy is able to reap such benefits simply because it produces power close to where it is needed. The current UK system is centralised, and relies on a few large power stations creating electricity miles away from the point of consumption; this method, developed in the 1930s, is so inefficient that two-thirds of the energy in the fuel is wasted before it gets to homes and workplaces. This huge loss of energy, enough to provide central heating and hot water to all the buildings in the UK, happens because large power stations far from towns and cities discard heat through cooling towers and cooling water, and lose even more power transporting the energy long distances through power lines. However, a decentralised system does not transport electricity long distances and, because power is produced locally, the heat, which would otherwise be wasted, can be captured and used. Stephen Tindale, Executive Director of Greenpeace, said: "This is the closest thing to the energy silver bullet. Decentralising energy will give us cleaner, cheaper and more secure power in the future. "The UK is now at an energy crossroads. We can choose to take the decentralised road, which is now proven to mean less reliance on gas, lower carbon emissions and lower costs. Or the Government can negligently lead us down the nuclear route, which will be more expensive, pump out more global warming gases and leave behind a dangerous legacy of hazardous radioactive waste. "Tony Blair tells us we need to make hard choices on nuclear, by which he means we have to accept it. But no hard choice is needed. We should go for the common sense, cleaner and cheaper option decentralised energy." Sytze Dijkstra of the World Alliance for Decentralised Energy (WADE), who developed the economic model, said: "WADE has been unable to find any honest and reliable economic analysis that compares centralised generation and decentralised energy. In particular, virtually all studies available ignore investment costs and energy losses of the transmission and distribution systems. "We have therefore developed this model to analyse all economic and environmental aspects of centralised and decentralised power generation. It is now being used by governments and other organisations around the world. We believe it is robust and reliable, and presents an honest view of future power sector investments and impacts." Dr Jim Watson, an energy expert at the University of Sussex, said: "A shift towards decentralised energy provision could make a serious contribution to UK energy policy goals. "Whilst many decentralised technologies exist already, large scale deployment is difficult within our current centralised system. The government should implement a fairer set of rules and regulations so that these technologies are taken seriously by energy companies and individuals." You can download the full report here. ENDS For more information, contact Niall Bennett in the Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8162 or niall.bennett@uk.greenpeace.org. ***************************************************************** 48 ICT: Prairie Island seeks nuclear waste disposal [2006/03/07] by: David Melmer / Indian Country Today Photo courtesy Prairie Island Sioux Community -- A mere 600 yards separate the Prairie Island Sioux Community (upper left) Xcel Energy's nuclear power plant (lower right), where dry casks containing nuclear waste sit on a dock. Community members hope the controversial Yucca Mountain facility will soon open so the waste can be stored there, even as other Native groups struggle to prevent it. WELCH, Minn. - The Prairie Island Sioux Community continues its search for a location to dump nuclear waste that sits in dry casks just yards from the community. Since 1994, when the casks were first placed on a dock at the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant (then owned by Northern States Power Co.), the community has objected, gone to court and eventually worked out compromises with the state Legislature and NSP. Yet the dry casks remain, unwelcome and a threat to thousands of lives. The Prairie Island tribal council has visited the Yucca Mountain facility before, but recently revisited it for the second time in four years to see what progress has been made. The on-again, off-again site that is under construction to house all of the nation's nuclear waste will take more years to complete than the Prairie Island people anticipated. Tribal council members told Indian Country Today that the facility may not be complete until 2025. (The site was originally slated for completion in 2010; later, 2015.) The site's opening has been delayed because of federal budget cuts and litigation over environmental issues. The Yucca Mountain site is also strongly opposed by some Western Shoshone who call it a human rights violation and have appealed to the United Nations for intervention. The Prairie Island Sioux Community will continue to fight to remove the nuclear waste, even through numerous setbacks, said Victoria Winfrey, tribal vice president. ''Native land could be permanently marred by the nation's failed waste policy,'' she said. Each year, as fiscal year budgets emerge and are finalized, the Yucca Mountain project receives fewer dollars than the year before, thereby delaying the project. ''Each year, the fund is less and less and less. It's partly the fault of Congress and ... some ridiculous standards,'' said Ron Johnson, assistant tribal secretary/treasurer. The state of Nevada successfully lobbied and received a change in the length of safe storage from 10,000 years to 1 million years. The 21 dry casks that now sit on the dock at Prairie Island are supposed to be safe for 10,000 years. ''A one-million-year radiation standard on the mountain seems ridiculous when casks yards away from our community do not have the same standards. ''The standards are clearly being imposed to kill the project,'' Johnson said. The community now receives the support from Red Wing, a nearby Minnesota community that would be affected should a meltdown or other disaster occur. The power plant and both communities are located on the Mississippi River, 30 miles southeast of the Twin Cities. The Mississippi is subject to flooding from time to time, thereby presenting another risk, the council members said. While Congress and the administration promote more nuclear power as clean energy, the budget for Yucca Mountain is inadequate and can't help Prairie Island or other communities with the same issue. While discussions take place, the Prairie Island power plant and its residue sit within 600 yards of the tribal community, where health risks are now emerging. ''We know there are health risks; we don't know how they tie in or correlate. A lot of tribal members have different types of cancers,'' said Audrey Bennett, tribal president. Currently, a health study by the University of Minnesota is under way and the Mayo Clinic has a health clinic in the community that is also collecting data. ''We see cancer in people who grew up with the plant ... What does that say for another 10 or 20 years?'' Bennett said. Yucca Mountain won't be able to store nuclear waste any time soon. There are no completed tunnels or alcoves that could store the waste; alcoves under the mountain are still being tested. Johnson said what the group saw in their visit was promising. One-third of the construction is complete; and from what the scientists and geologists told the Prairie Island group, Yucca Mountain will make a safe, long-term repository for nuclear waste, the council members said. ''We would like to strongly encourage congressional leaders to get up and going on funding support for this project,'' Johnson said. ''It is important this facility is opened. We spend our money to fight for these efforts. Who is going to wake up on the federal level and help us? Hey, we are spending our resources; it's time our constituency stepped up for tribes and gets going,'' he said. In the meantime, the reminder of nuclear waste faces the Prairie Island community every day, as the dry-cask storage is above ground. ''Here [Yucca Mountain], it's out in a remote area; you can't see anything. We don't know how much longer the casks will be [at Prairie Island],'' Vickie said. A possible nuclear waste repository site at the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah, which also faced strong opposition by a tribal faction, has been licensed. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Feb. 21 licensed the potentially largest privately owned nuclear waste dump. But it is all aboveground, and the storage capacity will be 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear rods to be held for a period not to exceed 40 years. This would be an economic boon to the Goshutes, but Prairie Island council members are still worried about the time line: it will take 10 years for that site to be functional, they said. The Prairie Island community has been living with the problem for a long time. The first reactor went online in 1973 and the second in 1974. Construction began on the facility in 1969, but the Prairie Island community didn't realize it would use nuclear power. ''We didn't have a choice. It happened rather quickly and we had to live with it,'' Winfrey said. The land was originally privately owned farmland. A couple of locations along the Mississippi were chosen, but communities fought the proposals and the location settled on was Prairie Island, officials said. The tribe was poor at the time and could not properly fight the proposed power plant. The Prairie Island community has worked out an agreement with Xcel Energy Inc., the power company that grew from NSP, for compensation of $1 million per year for the power plant and $400,000 per year for as long as the dry casks are stored on the site. Another of the tribal community's concerns is terrorism. The dry casks are stored in the open and at any time, as Johnson described it, someone in a plane could hit the casks and the reactors. Millions of people live in the Twin Cities area and could be affected by the results of such an attack. Another consideration is access to the island. There is only one road, which is blocked many times a day by trains passing on a rail line that crosses it. There could be 10,000 people on the island, at the casino or attending other events, and all employees at the plant must use the same road. Evacuation would be very difficult. ''That's a pretty scary proposition,'' Johnson said. ''We are frustrated but we never give up. We started as a tribe with nothing, went through [the] hard knocks of life, and now there is a health concern. We are also fighting for communities in a 50-mile radius,'' Johnson said. © 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved  ***************************************************************** 49 TheStar.com: Nuclear energy realistic solution Letters to the editor Mar. 7, 2006. 01:00 AM Ontario government too hasty on nuclear power Opinion, Feb. 28. It is not credible for Elizabeth May, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada to suggest the provincial government ignore the Ontario Power Authority's recommendation to invest in clean, safe, reliable nuclear energy. Instead, May states, "California experts should be brought to Queen's Park to share their economical and environmentally sound electricity strategies." Yet, according to the California Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology, California imports 21 per cent of its electricity from out-of-state, pollution-prone, greenhouse-gas emitting coal-fired power plants. These plants release 67 million tons of carbon dioxide annually  as much as 11 million automobiles. California environmentalists say that if the state continues to use these coal-fired plants, their emissions will eventually cancel out all of the global warming reductions made in the state. Is this the example May wants Ontario to follow? In fact, it's California that could learn a thing or two from the province. Conservation can help, sure. But investing in a nuclear energy infrastructure is the only realistic means of reducing fossil fuel emissions while meeting our growing energy demands. Dr. Patrick Moore, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Greenspirit Strategies Ltd., Vancouver, B.C. Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All ***************************************************************** 50 Tennessean: TVA may have partner, a first, in building reactor - Tuesday, 03/07/06 Associated Press CHATTANOOGA — For the first time, the Tennessee Valley Authority is considering building a major power plant with a partner utility, a spokesman said. TVA and Southern Co. agreed in a recent memorandum of intent to jointly pursue building the next generation of nuclear reactor at the Bellefonte plant site in northern Alabama. The project could create up to 2,000 jobs in Jackson County, Ala., during construction. TVA Senior Vice President Jack Bailey told The Chattanooga Times Free Press in a story published Sunday, "We are looking at a different design and licensing approach and different partnerships to help pay for such a plant. It's a new way of thinking for us." TVA and a consortium of utilities and equipment manufacturers have picked the Bellefonte site at Hollywood, Ala., for their new plant design. NuStart Energy Development LLC, an alliance of 11 utilities and manufacturers, wants to pursue a combined construction permit and operating license at Bellefonte for two AP1000 Westinghouse reactors. NuStart and the Department of Energy will split the projected $150 million cost for initial licensing and design for the new type of plant. Officials said most of the estimated $2 billion cost for each of the 1,200-megawatt reactors would be shared among the plant owners, if the project proceeds. "It's still very preliminary and we've made no commitments," said Sandi Robinson, a spokeswoman for the Southern Nuclear Operating Co., in Birmingham, Ala. Copyright © 2006, tennessean.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 51 Deccan Herald: Future reactors may come under IAEA scanner - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 From K Subrahmanya DH News Service New Delhi: The understanding on closure of CYRUS over the next five years is apparently intended to remove a major irritant in Indo-US nuclear relationship that would also help Mr Bush to get the deal through the US Congress. All future fast breeder reactors that India may build in future may be put under IAEA safeguards, though New Delhi would undertake to do so voluntarily. This and a decision on decommissioning the CYRUS research reactor at Bhabha Atomic Research Reactor (BARC) are understood to have been agreed last Thursday when US President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clinched a deal on Indias civil/military nuclear Separation Plan. The deal paved the way forward for implementation of the last Julys Indo-US civil nuclear energy cooperation agreement. The Manmohan Singh government is yet to divulge details of the Separation Plan and it has done so on the ground that it must be done in Parliament since the budget session is in progress. Top government officials have maintained that decisions on placing under IAEA safeguards all indigenously built future reactors, including fast breeders, would be taken by India and that such decisions would not be an issue of debate with the US. But informally, the understanding with the US is believed to have been reached that future fast breeders would be brought under safeguards. Eminent sense That would, however, make eminent sense since without placing fast breeders under safeguards India would not be able to divert spent fuel from the safeguarded reactors as part of the fuel to be loaded on fast breeders. India has bargained to keep as many as eight of the existing indigenously built or under-construction reactors with a view to provide for spent fuel for the proto-type fast breeder reactor under construction at Kalpakkam. It is not yet clear if the US would agree to allow India to reprocess the spent fuel from the safeguarded reactors for future fast breeder reactors. Going by Mr Bushs Asia Society speech on the eve of his visit here last week, the US may have reservations over allowing India to reprocess spent fuel. Mr Bush had not identified India among the supplier states for reprocessed fuel under his Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative for future. The implication is the US treated India as a recipient country and not a supplier country. Mr Bushs GNEP initiative seeks to address future energy requirements of countries across the world in a way that would also address the non-proliferation concerns. Closure of CYRUS The understanding on closure of CYRUS over the next five years is apparently intended to remove a major irritant in Indo-US nuclear relationship that would also help Mr Bush to get the deal through the US Congress. Non-proliferation hawks in the US have targeted the CYRUS reactor to question the rationale of reviving Indo-US nuclear cooperation. The reactor was built with Canadian help and US almost five decades ago and India had at that time pledged to use the reactor for peaceful purposes. However, it is alleged that India had diverted fissile material from the reactor for its first explosion in 1974. Braving criticism, India had defended the explosion, asserting it was a peaceful implosion. Copyright 2005, The Printers (Mysore) Private Ltd., 75, M.G. Road, Post Box No 5331, Bangalore - 560001 Tel: +91 (80) 25880000 Fax No. +91 (80) 25880523 ***************************************************************** 52 Korea Times: KEPCO Strengthening Global Reach Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Biz/Finance By Choi Kyong-ae Staff Reporter This is a KEPCO-run Ilijan combined cycle power plant in the Philippines after three years of construction from June 1999 to June 2002. The plant can produce 1,200 megawatts a year and will be in operation until 2022. / Yonhap South KoreaˇŻs Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) is strengthening its global reach, offering other countries cleaner ways of producing electricity at reasonable prices. ``As local electric demand is expected to remain at around two to three percent annually in the near future, it is necessary to look for new markets,ˇŻˇŻ said KEPCOˇŻs spokesperson Park Yong-seong, adding that the electric company has accumulated cutting-edge technologies that are ready to be utilized in overseas markets. KEPCO will invest $1 billion in overseas facilities that have a capacity of producing 10,000 megawatts by 2015 in a transformation that will turn it from a local energy company a world-class energy leader. The blueprint was modeled after global energy companies such as General Electric in the United States and EDF in France, which have a long history of exploiting foreign markets as their important growth engines. Under its plan, KEPCO will put forward the clean development mechanism (CDM), a device by which advanced countries win the right to emit carbon dioxide beyond what the Kyoto Protocol allows by helping developing countries decrease the emissions of the anti-environmental gas. The electric industry accounts for 24 percent of emissions by South Korean companies so they need to buy the right to yield more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through the CDM. In addition, KEPCO has to secure a stable supply of raw materials that account for 60 percent of its total production expenses. The Korean electricity company has already advanced to the Philippines, Lebanon and Indonesia. The nationˇŻs power monopoly signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with an Indonesian state-run electric company on the construction of the Southeast Asian countryˇŻs first nuclear power plant in December last year. Under the MOU, KEPCO will devise an overall plan for one year for the construction of the plant jointly with the Korea Hydro &Nuclear Power Co. and IndonesiaˇŻs state-owned electricity company, PT.PLN. KEPCO will introduce its optimized power reactor (OPR) with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts in Indonesia. It has also won a bid to operate and maintain two combined cycle power plants in Lebanon for the next five years. One is located in the region of Deir-Amer, about 85 kilometers north of Beirut, and the other is in Zahrani, about 65 kilometers south of Beirut. The two public power plants whose operation began last month generate 47 percent of the countryˇŻs entire energy supply, according to KEPCO. Early this year the Lebanon government gave an approval for KEPCO to push ahead with the $85.5 million project. In November last year, the Korean power company beat six other bidders for the project. KEPCO became the first South Korean company to penetrate the power plant market in the Middle Eastern country. It considers the deal ``a bridgehead to enter the market in the Middle East.ˇŻˇŻ Furthermore, KEPCO is currently constructing power plants in Asian countries such as the Philippines and China. It is also providing technical assistance to Libya to make inroads into markets in Africa. Particularly in the Philippines, KEPCO has grown to one of the nationˇŻs top 10 profitable companies with sales of $200 million in 2003. All its overseas business projects will be based on its know-how in the Southeast Asian country. godamon@koreatimes.co.kr 03-07-2006 15:52 ***************************************************************** 53 UPI: Japanese nuke plant dies on drawing board United Press International - NewsTrack - 3/7/2006 9:01:00 AM -0500 OSAKA, Japan, March 7 (UPI) -- Kansai Electric Power Co. dropped plans to build a nuclear power plant in Kyotango, Kyoto Prefecture. KEP blamed strong local opposition and sluggish demand for electricity, Asahai Shimbun said Tuesday. The utility had picked Kumihama, which along with five other towns merged into Kyotango in 2004, as a candidate site for the nuclear plant in 1975. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 54 Vermont Guardian: Feds put Vermont Yankee uprate on hold due to excess vibration By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian posted March 7, 2006 BRATTLEBORO Federal regulators have frozen the Vermont Yankee power increase at 105 percent after a measurement on Saturday recorded vibrations that exceeded acceptable levels, the Vermont Guardian has learned. The data forwarded to us on Saturday for the A main steam line exceeded one of the criteria levels. So, in accordance with the monitoring plan, a hold has been placed on further power increases while the data is evaluated, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan told the Vermont Guardian in an e-mail late Monday. The NRC last week issued approval to allow Vermont Yankee to increase power to 120 percent of its design capacity under close scrutiny because of concerns about the plants steam dryer, the component that removes water droplets from the steam before it feeds into the turbines. The conditions require VY operators to increase power in increments of 5 percent and hold each increase for 96 hours after the vibration and stress measurements are sent to regulators. The NRC staff is independently evaluating the 105 percent data and will review the engineering evaluation [necessary for further power ascension] after it is completed by Entergy, Sheehan said. Our resident inspectors will continue to monitor Entergy's actions onsite. An inspection of the VY dryer in November revealed more than 40 hairline cracks. VY officials said the fissures were probably old, and were detected with sophisticated magnification equipment first used during the most recent refueling outage to check 20 cracks found in the dryer in 2004. Although the steam dryer is considered a non-safety component, experts say breakage could compromise the reactors safety systems if, for example, a piece of the cracked dryer were to break off and lodge in a valve. Cracks discovered late last year in the welded reinforcements of the Dresden II reactors steam dryer in Illinois, which is similar to Vermont Yankee, also raised concerns at the NRC about the stability of the devices. Dresden II, a boiling water reactor like Vermont Yankee, was shut down for a refueling outage when inspectors discovered fissures in six triangular stainless steel gussets that had been welded onto the plants cracked steam dryer in an effort to reinforce it. To NRCs credit theyre saying lets take a look at this, said Ray Shadis, technical advisor to the anti-nuclear group New England Coalition. But what we anticipate is that they will once again sharpen their pencils, do some calculations and figure out that maybe they can run a little bit longer. Last week Shadis said he didnt expect VY to exhibit problems at 105 percent because operators last year told the NRC that they had already run the plant above 100 percent. If they have excessive vibrations or strain at 105 percent and the executives from VY have already admitted that they routinely run flow rates in excess of 100 percent, I have some concern that they should permit the reactor to run at all, Shadis added. Vermont Yankee officials did not return phone calls at press time. Wednesday, Mar. 08, 2006 Vermont: PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404 Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 702, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382 (toll-free) ©2005 Vermont Guardian | Visit us: www.vermontguardian.com This document can be located online: www.vermontguardian.com/local/032006/VYUprateStalls.shtml ***************************************************************** 55 [du-list] False positive DU test results from UMRC Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 15:02:47 -0800 From: "Daniel Fahey" To: duweapons@hotmail.com Subject: False positive DU test results from UMRC Date sent: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 22:58:53 +0000 Has the Uranium Medical Research Centre committed fraud, or just engaged in sloppy scientific work regarding depleted uranium testing? The news that Richard David was never exposed to DU has profound implications (story below).This finding not only ended Mr. David's court case, but also effectively invalidates the test results that were the basis for Durakovic et al's 2002 paper in Military Medicine (still posted on UMRC's web site), in which 14 out of 27 people tested supposedly showed signs of DU exposure.One of these veterans is Jim Glennon, who sits on the UK's Depleted Uranium Oversight Board and was told by Dr. Durakovic that he had the highest levels of DU exposure.Mr. David was told by Dr. Durakovic that he "had one of the highest levels of uranium contamination out of all the samples" (The Observer (UK), July 11, 2004).Durakovic and UMRC used these false-positive test results to make fantastic claims about DU in the media and raise unknown amounts of money to support their activities. It has been clear for some time that the Uranium Medical Research Centre has been manipulating veterans about the results of DU testing, but with the news of Mr. David's results it is clear UMRC has also manipulated civilians.I feel sorry for Mr. David that he wasmisled by UMRC, and I hope that news of UMRC's flawed test results and eroded credibility are spread far and wide so that there is no further manipulation of either veterans or civilians by UMRC or Dr. Durakovic. Dan Fahey BBC News March 2, 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/4766580.stm Man loses depleted uranium action A former defence worker who claimed that his life was made a "living hell" by exposure to depleted uranium at a factory has lost his High Court action. Richard David, 51, of Seaton, Devon, sued Normalair Garrett - now owned by Honeywell Aerospace - for compensation. The company denied depleted uranium was ever used at the plant in Yeovil. Mr Justice Walker sitting in London said that Mr David had not shown that he was exposed to depleted uranium at the time he was employed by the firm. Mr David, who left work through ill health in July 1995, claimed that medical tests had revealed mutations to his DNA and damage to his chromosomes which could only have been caused by ionising radiation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- stichting Laka Laka foundation documentatie en onderzoeks- documentation and research centrum kernenergie centre on nuclear energy Ketelhuisplein 43 Ketelhuisplein 43 1054 RD Amsterdam NL-1054 RD Amsterdam tel: 020-6168294 Netherlands fax: 020-6892179 tel: +31-20-6168294 fax: +31-20-6892179 www.laka.org laka@antenna.nl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ***************************************************************** 56 Deseret News: Thyroid woes a long-term risk after exposure to radiation Tuesday, March 7, 2006 Japanese study may offer clues in Utah fallout legacy By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News In what might have implications for Utahns exposed to radioactive fallout in the 1950s and '60s, a new Japanese study concludes the danger of thyroid disease continues for many decades after exposure to atomic bomb radiation. The report published in the March 1 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association says that among the 4,091 Japanese atomic bomb attack survivors examined almost 60 years after the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thyroid disease was identified in 1,833, or 44.8 percent of the participants. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control discontinued a study headed by the University of Utah's Dr. Joseph L. Lyon of thyroid abnormalities among downwinders exposed to fallout from atomic testing in Nevada. That study, a follow-up examining people who were children during above-ground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, ended after an expenditure of $8 million. Although only 1,700 of a planned 4,500 people were examined, Lyon told the Deseret Morning News last June, "We identified several hundred cases of disease." The method of exposure is different between direct atomic bomb blasts and fallout. But what is striking about the Japanese study is that for children exposed to atomic bomb radiation, thyroids continued to develop abnormalities nearly six decades after the momentary exposure. In the JAMA study, Japanese scientists examined people who were exposed through the flash of radiation released when atomic bombs went off at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The leader of the study was Dr. Misa Imaizumi of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Nagasaki. "A significant linear radiation dose response for thyroid nodules, including malignant tumors and benign nodules, exists in atomic bomb survivors," the study says. "However, there is no significant dose response for autoimmune thyroid diseases." The Japanese study included a "comprehensive thyroid disease survey between 2000 and 2003," JAMA said. It notes that "55 to 58 years after radiation exposure, a significant linear dose-response relationship existed in the prevalence of not only malignant thyroid tumors but also benign thyroid nodules and that the relationship was significantly higher in those exposed at younger ages." Autoimmune thyroid diseases were not found to be significantly associated with radiation exposure, the JAMA article says. John D. Boice Jr., scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md., wrote an editorial published by JAMA, discussing the study. It noted that there was no significant increased risk of thyroid cancer for people who were exposed after age 20, and that radiation-induced thyroid cancers are rarely fatal. However, he wrote, "the risk per unit dose following exposure in childhood is higher than for any other radiation-induced malignancy." In a Deseret Morning News telephone interview, Boice said the Japanese study had two notable findings: "One, that nearly 60 years after being exposed to the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a biological effect on the thyroid could be detected," he said. "And so that indicates that this risk has stayed with the children that were exposed for almost 60 years." He thought that length of time was especially interesting. The risk appears to be decreasing with the years but was still present, he said. "The second thing was, they did a rather exhaustive study, looking for the so-called autoimmune disease." Japanese researchers used the latest biological tests to look for hormones in the blood that would indicate increased risk of autoimmune-type thyroid disease. "They found absolutely no evidence for any association with radiation" in such diseases, he said. For other thyroid diseases, including cancer, a direct association appears to fit with dosage, he said. This applies to children, as people who were adults at time of exposure did not show this risk. "The atomic bombs were a fraction of a second," Boice said. "There was whole-body exposure. The dose was delivered at a very high rate." In comparison, with ingested fallout, the exposure usually would be to a much lower level of radiation but continued over a longer period. Radioactive Iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days, compared with the nearly instantaneous exposure from a bomb's flash. With fallout, the commonest way that the thyroid was exposed is through drinking milk that contained radioactive iodine, usually I-131. The iodine particles fell from clouds drifting from the Nevada Test Site, cows grazed on contaminated fields and children drank milk from the cattle. J Truman, a Malad resident who grew up in southwestern Utah and is director of the advocacy group Downwinders, was critical of the CDC for killing the Utah thyroid study. "Just as the Japanese are finding damages from the exposures they received are still causing cancers and other problems 60 years later," he wrote in an e-mail to the Deseret Morning News, "a similar study ongoing now for 40 years at the U. of U. started to show new effects and relationships." But then, Truman added, the U. study was terminated before it could be finished. E-mail: bau@desnews.com © 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company [ ***************************************************************** 57 Trinidad News: Exposure to Mayaro uranium canister could be harmful, warns EMA DANGER http://www.trinidadexpress.com Richard Charan rcharan@trinidadexpress.com Tuesday, March 7th 2006 The device that washed ashore in Mayaro over the weekend contains 16 kilogrammes of depleted uranium, and exposure to the radiation could be harmful to people and the environment, the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) stated yesterday. As a result, the EMA is warning the public not to tamper with the equipment but to instead contact the authorities. The EMA released photographs of the device, stating that an investigation was underway to determine whether any offence was committed when it was discarded. A $100,000 fine and two years in jail can be imposed on anyone who releases a pollutant or hazardous substance, and knowingly or recklessly endangers life or health, according to the Environmental Management Act. The EMA said that the purchaser of the device in Trinidad has been identified. The device was discovered last Friday night by a man on the shore near Haji Ralph Khan Avenue, Stone Bright Village, Mayaro, several miles from bpTT's Pt Galeota oil facility. There are several offshore oil platforms off the coast of Mayaro, and the device is believed to have been dumped into the sea and washed ashore on the high tide. The EMA stated that radiation level tests were conducted on the canister at the St James Police Barracks, and it was found that it contained "an iridium -192 source shielded with 16kg of depleted uranium. Exposure to radiation to these materials can be harmful to human health and the environment". The equipment was not damaged and none of the material was exposed. Iridium 192 is defined as a radioactive isotope of the element Iridium which has a half life of 75 days, and is used as a source of gamma radiation. Gamma radiation is similar to X-rays. Uranium is the fuel used in nuclear reactors. The EMA found that the discarded equipment is used by the petroleum industry to establish the integrity of welded joints, and that it was "not to be opened or tampered with". The EMA stated that contact had already been made with the US-based manufacturers who were making arrangements to dispose of the equipment. Anyone finding a similar device is asked to telephone 628-8042-44 or 680-9588, the Fire Services, or nearest police station. Site designed and managed by CCN New Ventures. Editor at large: Keith Smith, Editor: Omatie Lyder, TV News; Natalie Williams, Copyright 2005 All rights reserved. Trinidad Express 35 Independence Sq, Port of Spain, Trinidad. Express newspaper and TV6 are subsidiaries of Caribbean Communications Network, http://www.ccngroup.comPowered by www.cpsgsoftware.com ***************************************************************** 58 UPI: U. of Chicago cited for nuke safety snafus United Press International - Energy - 3/7/2006 1:33:00 PM -0500 WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) -- The Energy Department issued a preliminary violation notice to the University of Chicago for nuclear safety violations at the Argonne National Laboratory. "A series of reviews and inspections, the most recent of which occurred in 2005, identified breakdowns in the contractor's quality improvement, radiation protection, work process, and independent and management assessment programs," the department said in a statement on Tuesday. The statement said before 2005, senior contractor management at the laboratory failed to comply with Energy Department's nuclear safety regulations and the university's efforts to correct these problems were largely ineffective. It said, however, the deficiencies had not caused significant radiation exposures or other nuclear safety incidents. "DOE noted in a letter to the ANL that it was simply fortuitous that no harm had occurred to ANL staff, given the breadth and duration of the identified violations," the statement said. The University of Chicago last year named a new management team to ANL and the facilities new director has begun to take corrective actions, including the implementation of a new safety program infrastructure, the statement added. The 1998 Price-Anderson Amendments Act authorizes the Energy Department to take regulatory actions against those contractors who violate nuclear safety requirements. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 59 Sydney Morning Herald: Land council relaxed about nuclear waste - National - smh.com.au [Inspection … land council members at Lucas Heights.] Photo: Ben Rushton By Tim Colquhoun March 8, 2006 THE Northern Land Council declared it would welcome a nuclear waste dump in its backyard after representatives inspected the nuclear facility at Lucas Heights. Nine executive members of the Northern Land Council, which represents the Northern Territory's traditional land owners north of Tennant Creek, said yesterday they would defer to science over politics. However, the group seems likely to generate a political storm of its own after dismissing environmental concerns and the objections of Clare Martin, the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. John Daly, the chairman of the land council, said: "I think the biggest mistake Australia has made in general is that we have listened to politicians; we should have listened to scientists. "We want to leave the political side of it out and have a look at the pure science of what we have to deal with, with a waste facility." Mr Daly said the council would not receive money for supporting a waste dump, but he indicated that education and health benefits would be sought for local communities. After the Federal Court rebuffed its bid to build a facility in South Australia against the wishes of the state government, the Federal Government passed legislation in 2005 dictating that a nuclear waste repository would be established in the Northern Territory by 2011. A site has not been selected, but Ms Martin said science had already been overruled by politics. "The [Territory] has been selected for political expediency; South Australia has been identified as the location which is scientifically most suitable," she said. The chief executive of the Northern Land Council, Norman Fry, said nuclear waste was not a big issue for the council. "It's not that scary to us," he said. "The land council has got a very tough reputation; we've been very harsh on government and regulators … you can understand that our people here will ask very, very strong questions." | | Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 60 Bradenton Herald: Lockheed gets more time 03/07/2006 | Company given 45 days to get data for Tallevast plume report DONNA WRIGHT Herald Staff Writer TALLEVAST - Lockheed Martin Corp. got its requested reprieve on the next big report required by state regulators. The deadline was next Monday. The state Department of Environmental Protection agreed to give Lockheed 45 more days to gather more data on the extent of the plume of industrial waste under Tallevast. Lockheed's new due date is April 27, said Pamala Vazquez, DEP spokeswoman. The defense giant learned of the new deadline through a verbal agreement from state regulators, said Gail Rymer, Lockheed spokeswoman. Tina Armstrong, Lockheed's remediation expert in charge of the Tallevast cleanup, had offered to turn in an interim report March 13, but DEP declined. "We would rather have the full report rather than get data we know is not complete," Vazquez said. Meanwhile, Lockheed continues work on a new well for Tallevast cattlewoman Heidi Boothe in preparation for sealing off her existing cattle watering well, said to be 500 feet deep. Independent test results on Boothe's existing well revealed the presence of 1,4-dioxane, a stabilizer used in industrial degreasers. Michael Graves, the geologist who ran the independent soil and groundwater tests requested by Tallevast residents, said he believes the 1,4-dioxane represents the leading edge of the underground plume of toxic waste. Lockheed has said it is imperative to seal or abandon all domestic and irrigation wells within a half-mile of the old Loral American Beryllium Co. plant to protect the community from potential exposure pathways from the Tallevast plume. Boothe granted Lockheed access to her ranch after receiving an administrative order from DEP requiring her to do so. The new well for Boothe will be 420 feet deep, according to Rymer. "The new well is strictly for Ms. Booth's use and replaces her existing well, which we will properly abandon when we have finished investigating it," Rymer wrote in an e-mail to The Herald on Monday. "We have not worked out any arrangements to use the new well as a monitoring well in the future." Boothe could not be reached for comment. Lockheed has placed additional well clusters adjacent to the Boothe property that will be used for monitoring purposes, Rymer said. The source of the Tallevast plume has been traced to a broken sump at the old beryllium plant now operated by the Sarasota division of WPI Inc., a cable manufacturer. First thought to be confined to the five-acre plant site, the extent of plume is now known to cover 131 acres, and the boundaries have yet to be confirmed. As owner of the property when the contamination was discovered, Lockheed Martin has the responsibility to clean the mess up. Tallevast residents have filed two separate lawsuits against the defense giant, contending that the plume has lowered their property values and put them at risk. Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached at 745-7049 or at dwright@HeraldToday.com. HeraldToday.com Go to the Special Coverage area online for an archive of stories, maps and documents about the Tallevast plume. ***************************************************************** 61 Deseret News: Work with Goshutes, USU historian says Tuesday, March 7, 2006 By Laura Hancock Deseret Morning News OREM — Political leaders are guilty of paternalism and "environmental racism" as they fight the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indians against storing spent nuclear fuel rods in Tooele County, a historian says. ['Image'] Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning NewsUSU professor David Rich Lewis speaks at UVSC, saying leaders are guilty of paternalism as they oppose Goshutes on N-waste storage. But the plan to store the rods in stainless steel containers on a concrete slab three feet above the ground is scary to many Utahns, Utah State history professor David Rich Lewis said. "The fear and the opposition in Utah is strong — and rightly so," he said. Lewis spoke Monday night at Utah Valley State College about American Indian sovereignty and the politics surrounding the 1997 agreement between the Goshutes and Private Fuel Storage, a limited liability company formed by eight large utilities to find places to temporarily store nuclear waste. An example of environmental racism was the so-called "Plan B," tossed around two years ago, when political leaders opposed nuclear waste close to the Wasatch Front, at the same time advocating its storage in rural parts of the state. The Plan B advocates suggested that as long as the Indians got to profit from it, the state might as well, too, Lewis said. Skull Valley borders Air Force testing ranges; U.S. Magnesium, the highest polluter in the United States; and military facilities that incinerate a nerve agent, all of which makes companies hesitant to relocate to the reservation. That leaves the reservation, which has an unemployment rate three times the national average, with few options for economic development, Lewis said. The state should give up fighting PFS in court or passing high taxes against it, and instead try to work with the Goshutes. "I think the state has models for this," Lewis said. "They have it with corporations. The point is to negotiate alternatives." Proposed legislation to give the Goshutes $2 million in exchange for it ending its agreement with PFS was not properly funded. No money from the state's budget was actually appropriated for the bill; Goshute leader Leon Bear saw through it and declined, Lewis said. About 50 students, faculty and members of the public attended Lewis' lecture, including Highland resident Anne Sward Hansen of the Environmental Justice Foundation. Hansen said she works with tribe members who are disgruntled with Bear. Bear lacks legitimacy among people who live in Skull Valley. She said she is fighting the Bureau of Indian Affairs' interpretation of Goshute tribal government. "There's never been a bank statement, a budget, no distribution of money from PFS" to the local people, she said. E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com © 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company [ ***************************************************************** 62 Deseret News: Clean Harbors pursuing nuclear waste option [deseretnews.com] Tuesday, March 7, 2006 Despite a thumbs-down from county officials, Clean Harbors Environmental Services seeks state permission to dispose of nuclear waste at its landfill at Grassy Mountain, Tooele County. The company is interested in disposing of Class A radioactive waste — the lowest hazard rating, and the only type that can be legally imported into Utah — at its landfill. Presently, the landfill handles hazardous but not radioactive waste. The only radioactive waste facility licensed in Utah is that of EnergySolutions, formerly Envirocare, also in Tooele County. On Friday, Tooele County officials notified the Utah Department of Environmental Quality's Radiation Control Board that the county ordinance does not allow new hazardous waste or low-level radioactive waste facilities. County commissioners had amended the ordnance on Nov. 22, said Nicole Cline, the county's planning and economic development advisor. Although Clean Harbors made a statement of interest on the subject to the state, she added, "we have of course local regulation on those types of facilities." Phill Retallick, spokesman for Clean Harbors, said the company continues to explore the option of filing an application with the Utah DEQ to upgrade the Grassy Mountain landfill to handle Class A waste. Asked if Clean Harbors is concerned about the county's position, he said, "No," and the project is a "multi-year process." While there is presently a moratorium on new facilities, he said, the situation can change. Meanwhile, "We are not restricted from applying for the license with the state agency." Clean Harbors had a preliminary meeting with the department last year, Retallick added. The purpose of the meeting was "to discuss the steps that need to be done." Cline said the company has the right to pursue an application with state regulators, and the right to ask the county if it is willing to change its position. © 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company [ ***************************************************************** 63 reviewjournal.com: Energy secretary's statement retracted by White House Mar. 07, 2006 Bodman said nuclear waste would stay at power plants until Yucca repository licensed WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration on Monday retracted a declaration from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman that nuclear waste will remain stored at power plants until a Nevada repository is licensed. Bodman "simply spoke too soon" in comments he made Friday during a meeting with reporters, according to an official familiar with negotiations within the administration on nuclear waste policy. Bodman told reporters the Bush administration had ruled out creating temporary storage sites where thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste could be relocated from power plants in 39 states while work continues at Yucca Mountain. A nuclear waste bill that is being written by the Energy Department and the White House would not seek permission from Congress for interim storage, Bodman said. But officials said Monday that interim storage remains a possibility and the new legislation has not been finalized. The official, who took an unusual step of calling reporters to discuss Bodman's comments, declined to be identified. "The legislative package is not complete and discussions are ongoing, and Secretary Bodman simply spoke too soon," the official said. Bodman had no immediate comment on Monday, but he is expected to talk about nuclear waste and interim storage during an appearance Wednesday before the House energy and water subcommittee. Bodman said Friday that federal law prohibits the Energy Department from seeking to establish interim nuclear waste storage until a repository is licensed, and he was planning to follow that course. "All our efforts will be going into the procurement of an operating license" for Yucca Mountain, Bodman said. "At that point in time we will make a decision whether we will take advantage of interim storage opportunities or not." Nuclear industry officials who support the Yucca repository did a double-take at Bodman's remarks. Lobbyists for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade group, had declared swift relocation of nuclear waste from power plants to be their prime goal this year. Ongoing delays within the Yucca program, coupled with a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process that could stretch for years, could mean nuclear waste would not be removed from plant sites for the foreseeable future if the administration follows the course outlined by the secretary. If interim storage is not in the plans, "what is the purpose of having a bill in the first place?" said one industry official who sought a transcript of Bodman's remarks on Monday. Pulling back comments from the energy secretary "is one of those things that doesn't happen very often," the official said. There had been broad speculation that the forthcoming nuclear waste bill would seek to establish interim storage at the Savannah River site in South Carolina, the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, or at the Nevada Test Site. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006 ***************************************************************** 64 CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Nuclear material shipments are subject to some of the nation’s most stringent regulations Asheville, NC by Joe Gilliland published March 7, 2006 6:00 am Recently the Citizen-Times published a guest commentary by Dr. Michael Hopping (“Let’s stop a nuclear accident in WNC before it happens,” AC-T, Feb. 17) that I found of more than passing interest. One reason is that I was a public affairs officer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for 19 years, the last four years as assistant to the public affairs director. The other is that, three days before the column’s publication, the National Research Council announced the results of an independent study examining the safety of transporting irradiated nuclear fuel to a proposed underground repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Research Council’s announcement said the study — requested by Congress — found “no fundamental technical barriers to the safe transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the United States.” It called for separate evaluation of the “social impacts” of such shipments, mainly on tourism and property values. And it said more studies are needed to assess long-duration fires that could engulf spent fuel casks, as well as to evaluate “the security of such shipments against malevolent acts.” In a separate announcement the same day, the NRC said it sponsored a study that concluded that a fire such as the one in a Baltimore (not Boston) tunnel in 2001 would cause neither spent fuel particles nor fission products to be released from a cask. That study was not completed in time for the National Research Council analysis. NRC also said it is completing a series of security assessments in light of the current terrorist threat environment and is preparing for a comprehensive fuel cask safety update. More recently, the NRC published for public comment a separate report that analyzed the implications on spent fuel transportation of a highway tunnel fire in California in 1982. This study’s conclusions are similar to those in the analysis of the Baltimore rail tunnel fire. Anyone interested will find the National Research Council announcement at , along with information about ordering a copy of the full report. NRC’s statement on the Research Council project is available at lections/news/2006/06-020.html. Its announcement on the highway tunnel fire report may be found at lections/news/2006/06-026.html. In his commentary, Dr. Hopping linked spent fuel transportation with various other nuclear issues, viewing them all with alarm. He also had some words of cheer about the potential for spent fuel-laden trains traveling through Biltmore Village. That is certainly a possibility, but I worry more about the effects of future flooding there. Obviously spent fuel is part and parcel of the whole nuclear scene, but it is something our society must deal with even if every nuclear power plant in the United States shut down tomorrow and the government immediately halted its nuclear weapons program. By law, this highly radioactive waste is eventually to be disposed of in an underground repository, a complex underground structure that is much more than a “dump.” Like it or not, the law also specifies Yucca Mountain as the site to be evaluated. As things now stand, the Department of Energy — which is responsible for developing the repository — has formally approved the Yucca Mountain site and has published a final environmental impact statement. But, to say the least, it does not appear that its submission of a license application to the NRC is just around the corner. Whenever that happens, NRC will still have to review the application in detail and deal with any legal challenges. Whether one favors or opposes any future nuclear development, it seems reasonable to me to recognize that, as the National Research Council report says, a radioactive release from spent fuel shipping casks is “very unlikely given [their] robust construction and the strict regulations for transporting them.” These two factors are precisely why an extremely good safety record has been maintained over 40 years worldwide in the shipment of such highly radioactive material. Without question, the magnitude of these shipments will increase dramatically with the opening of a spent fuel repository or even of other proposed controversial facilities, like a so-called interim storage site or even a fuel reprocessing plant. Much planning and other shipment-related work remain to be done by governmental authorities, whose activities should be as transparent as possible, consistent with security. But the safety regime already in place is a distinct advantage as we approach this task. Joe Gilliland is a retired public affairs officer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He also worked for a group of community newspapers in Middle Tennessee and holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. He lives in Asheville. Copyright 2006 Asheville Citizen-Times. ***************************************************************** 65 Shoreline Beacon: Radioactive waste facility to expand to handle Bruce Power’s restart waste Port Elgin, ON March 8, 2006 Port Elgin, ON, N0H 2C0 Phone: (519) 832-9001 Fax: (519) 389-4793 By Tracey Cassidy Ontario Power Generation is hoping to construct two storage buildings at its Western Waste Management Facility to house the low and intermediate radioactive waste generated from Bruce Power’s restart project. The project has just received approval of its environmental assessment and is now awaiting licence approval for construction. Kevin Orr, senior communications advisor, said the public was informed of the project during a series of open houses last spring, but there was not a lot of interest shown. If approval is given, two buildings, 44 x 34 meters and just under 8 meters high, will be constructed this spring and will be completed by year-end or early in 2007. One will house steam generators (low level waste), while the second will store retube components such as pressure tubes, fittings and shield plugs (intermediate waste). The project is expected to cost $17 million, including engineering and design expenses. More expansion underway The waste management facility is also growing to accommodate operational waste from the nuclear plant. Previous approvals for three new low level storage buildings have resulted in building 9 being erected, with building 10 to be constructed this spring. The third building will go up when it’s needed. “We build additional low level storage buildings every couple of years,” said Orr. He added the new structures are very similar in design to the existing buildings. Proprietor and published by Bowes Publishers Limited at 694 Goderich Street, Port Elgin, Ontario, Canada N0H 2C0 © 2006 Shoreline Beacon ***************************************************************** 66 Kyiv Post: U.S. businessman hopes for Ukrainian approval for nuclear storage facility by Bigmir net Mar 07 2006, 20:01 (AP) The head of an American company expressed hope for government and parliamentary approval for a planned storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, saying it would ease Ukraine's reliance on Russia. Kris Singh, president of Marlton, New Jersey-based Holtec International, also said the company is prepared to offer a multimillion-dollar loan to implement the project. Holtec signed a contract for the US$152 million (-127 million) project with Ukraine's state-run atomic energy company Energoatom in December, but it needs approval by the government and parliament. "This project is critical for your country ... because it strengthens your national sovereignty, prevents the payment of outlandish fees for temporary storage of fuel abroad," Singh told reporters in the capital, Kyiv. Currently, Ukraine pays Russia some US$100 million (-83 million) annually for storage and reprocessing. Singh said his company is "ready to give an up to US$100 million" (-83 million) in loans toward the project. Singh said he hopes for parliamentary approval by June, but that parliamentary elections later this month could mean delays. He also dismissed criticism from former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who said last month that the project threatened Ukraine's energy security and warned of the creation of an "international burial ground" for nuclear waste from many countries. Ukraine was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident when a reactor in the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded in 1986, spewing radiation over much of northern Europe. Chernobyl was shut for good in 2000, but Ukraine has four operation nuclear power plants. [bigmir)net TOP 100] www.bigmir.net © 2004 - 2006, SputnikMedia.net. Kyiv Post ***************************************************************** 67 Daily Herald: Waste raises questions of tribes' sovereignty Tuesday, March 07, 2006 ANNA CHANG-YEN - Daily Herald Who in their right mind would want to store highly radioactive waste in their back yard? The answer seems simple enough: no one. But what simmers beneath the surface of that question is a debate about the sovereignty of American Indian tribes in the United States, said David Rich Lewis, a Utah State University American history professor who spoke at Utah Valley State College on Monday night. He was speaking as part of the "Turning Points in History" lecture series. Just two weeks after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted permission for storage of spent nuclear fuel rods at the Goshute reservation at Skull Valley, the issue of who gets the final say about what goes on on tribal property still remains, Lewis said. And to answer that question he turns to history. From the time Mormon settlers arrived in Utah in 1847, American Indians were pushed aside, Lewis said. "Mormons drove the Goshutes into the desert hills, appropriated their land, even poisoned their water holes, all in the name of protecting white settlers, livestock and the overland trial." Today, with the 18,000-acre valley already surrounded by federal bombing ranges, nerve agent storage facilities and other dumps, the remaining members of the Goshute band who live on the reservation are left with very few options for economic development, Lewis said. The tribe's leader, Leon Bear, sees the deal with Private Fuel Storage as a way to breathe new life into his nation, Lewis said. "This agreement with PFS would bring millions of dollars annually and provide jobs." For critics of the deal, it is an issue of "environmental racism," Lewis said. "Economic or racist self-interest becomes evident. When it suited the state's interest, we have invited with open arms these kinds of operations into our state, but we refuse to discuss even the possibility with the Goshutes." What is needed, Lewis said, is a focused dialogue, grounded in mutual respect, commitment to the legal factors at play, compromise and vision. Complicating matters is a rift within the tribe, between members who support Bear and those who back his opponent, Sammy Black Bear, who doesn't want the waste on tribal lands. Rio Downs, who grew up on tribal land in Deep Creek near Wendover, Nev., said she didn't hear anything new during Lewis's talk, but the average person probably isn't familiar with the real issues facing the Goshutes. She said she keeps in touch with friends in Deep Creek and says they sympathize with their counterparts in Skull Valley. "They don't want it out there. It's just the council that wants it," Downs said. Anne Sward Hansen, of the Environmental Justice Foundation in Provo, said she's been working to help Goshutes write down their traditional form of government to meet legal requirements. Many Goshutes oppose the plan and don't believe Bear is their leader. And although the tribe's sovereignty might be in jeopardy, it is not only the government they battle, Hansen said. "When you talk about tribal sovereignty, it's being exploited by PFS keeping Leon Bear in office. It's not tribal way," he said. Lewis said he fears that if Utah politicians continue to refuse to compromise, history will be repeated. This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1. Copyright © 2006 Daily Herald and Lee Enterprises ***************************************************************** 68 Las Vegas Business Press: UNLV scientists work on nuclear waste reduction Program expands as DOE funds research to alleviate storage woes BY ARNOLD M. KNIGHTLY BUSINESS PRESS Research and doctoral programs tied to UNLV's Transmutation Research Program have received $18 million in grants over their first 4 1/2 years from the Department of Energy in the hope that the research will find ways to reduce nuclear fuel waste. "What's nice about it is it gives us a chance to do some interesting science," said Dr. Ken Czerwinski, associate professor of chemistry at UNLV. "The students get some very good projects, get some good science, push back our frontier of knowledge in the fundamental science of these radionuclide. But there is also the tactical aspect of trying to make a better fuel." Last year, the university received $95 million in extramural funding with $69.4 million going to research, according to Mark Rudin, senior associate vice president of research services at UNLV, who added that there has been a significant increase over the past few years in research funding. He cited Czerwinski's Radiochemistry program as helping raise the profile of the university as a research institution. The Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Chattanooga cost more than $6 billion to build. The latest grant from the federal government came in early February, when the Department of Chemistry received a research and development grant for $687,288 from the DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Initiative and will fund the Radiochemistry program's research on decreasing the amount of nuclear waste. PRESIDENTIAL INITIATIVES NERI is a product of a 1997 request by then-President Bill Clinton of the Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology to address the nation's future energy production and use. The committee recommended expanding nuclear energy as an option and encouraged more research. In 1999, Congress began funding NERI-sponsored research. Czerwinski, along with Dr. Thomas Hartmann, a research scientist at UNLV's Harry Reid Center, and Dr. Al Sattelberger, a visiting chemistry professor, will collaborate with the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on a project titled, "Solution-Based Synthesis of Nitride Fuels." "It is a method for making a novel fuel for reactors," Czerwinski said. "The reason, for us, that we're interested in doing it is from a very academic point of view in the sense that we are developing at UNLV a Radiochemistry Ph.D. program and we have a research group that involves doing research in this area. "If you wanted to burn plutonium in a reactor you wouldn't have to bury it at the mountain. We came up with a method that is based on some novel chemical synthesis. We looked at this so we can apply this to solving this problem with fuel development." "This problem" is that existing nuclear plants in the United States produce too much waste that may overtax the current storage facilities. During his recent State of the Union address, President George W. Bush announced the Advanced Energy Initiative "to push breakthroughs" in electricity generation including nuclear power. The president's 2007 budget asks for $250 million for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in which America will work with other nations that, the White House and Czerwinski admit, "have advanced civilian nuclear energy programs." "In some ways they're ahead of us and in some areas we're ahead of them," said Czerwinski, who worked in Europe for five years. "But there's no question with these applications for civilian use, they're ahead of us." The GNEP program will work to "develop and deploy innovative, advanced reactors and new methods to recycle spent nuclear fuel," according to the 15-page document titled, "Advanced Energy Initiative." The initiative will help the United States increase energy production while reducing the waste and lowering the opportunities for weapons to be made from the byproducts by recycling or reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. NON-PROLIFERATION In 1979, the Carter Administration decided to halt reprocessing for two main reasons: The fear of plutonium falling into the wrong hands, and to keep the reprocessing technology from spreading to other parts of the world. Nuclear energy already had a public relations problem in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident and the radicalism that the Iranian Revolution brought home every day with the hostage crisis. These events put nuclear proliferation on the back burner. Other nations did not, however, follow the U.S. lead. Instead, they became more proficient in separation and reprocessing. "In some respects we are playing catch-up as a nation," Czerwinski said. "The problem with this area, in my opinion, is it's tied to politics. The reason America stopped reprocessing was purely political. There was no technical reason for it. We still have very good scientists at the national labs. I believe we can do it." But no matter how the president's plans develop, Yucca Mountain is still in play. The program is designed to reduce the amount and "radio-toxicity" of the waste that could be headed there. One of the goals of the president's plan, and a side benefit of Czerwinski's research, is that the country would only need one nuclear waste repository. There are currently 104 commercial nuclear generating units providing 19.9 percent of the country's electricity generation. The last plant was ordered in 1973 with the reactor coming online a decade ago. The Watts Bar Nuclear Plant on the Tennessee River 50 miles north of Chattanooga began service in May 1996. Costing more than $6 billion, the plant took more than two decades to build and only one of two units has currently been finished. Construction on the second unit has been stopped. The country's nuclear plants are, on average, 24 years old with licenses to operate 40 years with renewal options for another 20 years. "You're always going to have some residual (waste) just because of the nature of the industrial process," Czerwinski said. "But one of the goals of this whole reprocessing program is to say if we need to build a repository, how many repositories do we need to build? My opinion is if we come up with any number but one, the program's dead." USES FOR THE WASTE Reprocessing could have an impact on Yucca Mountain. The repository has been planned so that stored waste can be pulled out at a later date. Scientists theorize that future technologies will allow the repository to become a monitored retrievable storage facility. They expect to develop uses yet to be discovered for the waste. "I think that even if we do bury it in Yucca Mountain, it will be pulled out by future generations," Czerwinski said. "Even if they want to get the titanium drip shields, there'll be resources in there." Calling it "an opportunity unlike any other at a university," Czerwinski arrived from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Nuclear Engineering Department in 2004. While reprocessing and the ability to reduce nuclear waste are components of the research, the program is not geared to any given technology or application. "The way we do our studies is all very fundamental and our students can go work in all these fields," Czerwinski said. "The real key is having the capability to work with radionuclide and understand how to handle them and what information I can get from them. We're doing fundamental science that naturally lends itself to those applications." aknightly@lvbusinesspress.com | 702-871-6780 x316 Copyright © 2006 Las Vegas Business Press ***************************************************************** 69 AP Wire: Energy Department criticizes nuclear safety at Argonne National Lab 03/07/2006 TARA BURGHART Associated Press CHICAGO - The Department of Energy said Tuesday there have been such problems in the nuclear safety program at Argonne National Laboratory that "it is truly fortuitous that no one has been seriously injured." The Energy Department cited problems with the lab's radiation protection program, quality assurance efforts, training and record keeping, along with a lack of written procedures. The lab is located about 25 miles southwest of Chicago. The information was contained in a "preliminary notice of violation" sent to the University of Chicago, which manages the lab for the department, and was based on reviews from 1999 to 2005. While the violations are serious, they did not put the public at risk for radiation exposure, according to Energy Department spokesman Brian Quirke. The records from radiation detectors worn by all Argonne employees also were reviewed, and "no Argonne employee has been exposed to radiation doses anywhere close to what is allowed by any regulatory agency, including the U.S. Department of Energy," Quirke said. The problems range from a lack of the required signs in some areas where radioactive material was stored to a piece of equipment used for air sampling that was found to be inoperable. "It is truly fortuitous that no one has been seriously injured as a result of the deficiencies addressed in prior reviews of (Argonne) activities, for which no adequate corrective actions have been taken until now," the notice stated. The proposed $550,000 fine for the violations will be waived under the department's contract with the university because it is a nonprofit institution, Quirke said. The Energy Department's notice said it was impressed with actions taken to correct problems by a new team of managers and the lab's new director, Robert Rosner, who took the job last April. Those changes have resulted in a "cautious optimism" that problems with Argonne's nuclear safety programs will be resolved successfully, according to the notice. The University of Chicago's response is required within 30 days. "We are disappointed that we did not meet the Department of Energy's expectations or our expectations, but we're moving aggressively to solve the problems," said Tom Rosenbaum, the university's vice president for research and for Argonne. He said the university has hired a number of new managers, including Rosner; increased oversight and accountability with a council featuring outside nuclear experts; and invested "millions of dollars" in improving facilities, bringing in consultants and hiring new staff. "We were focused too much on outcomes and not enough on procedures," Rosenbaum said. "We're making sure we're covering the full spectrum of safety requirements." Chartered in 1946, Argonne is the nation's oldest national laboratory and employs about 2,700 employees. It has an annual operating budget of $475 million. Argonne has a long history of research and development in nuclear reactor technology. It also conducts basic research in the physical, life, and environmental sciences. In January, it was announced that the University of Chicago will have to compete for the contract to manage the facility for the first time since the lab was formed. A final decision on bids is expected in September. ON THE NET Argonne National Laboratory: http://www.anl.gov/ University of Chicago: http://www.uchicago.edu/ Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov/email this print this ***************************************************************** 70 Hanford News: Ex-Energy chief Abraham appointed to Areva board This story was published Monday, March 6th, 2006 By the Herald staff Spencer Abraham, the former U.S. Energy secretary, has been appointed chairman of the board of Areva. As non-executive chairman, Abraham will support Areva's nuclear energy business expansion in North America. Abraham also is chairman of The Abraham Group, an energy markets consulting firm. Dept. of Energy: DOE to put new safety regulations in place for Hanford workers 02/03/06 Fluor: Fluor manager earns engineering award 02/26/06 Bechtel: Bechtel National manager takes job in London office 01/18/06 Battelle/PNNL: Audit: Better coordination needed on research in radiation detection 03/04/06 CH2M Hill: Crystallization could streamline Hanford tank waste treatment 01/30/06 Homeland Security: Homeland security leader tours HAMMER 02/18/06 '/sections/fftf', start_story=>'1', end_story=>'1', format=> 'FFTF: [/sys/content/headline] [/sys/story/publish_date, format=>"%D"]' &> Cleanup: Small firm gets Hanford contract 03/02/06 Energy Northwest: Hanford Generating Plant site cleanup and restoration now complete 06/17/04 B Reactor: B Reactor group gets $350,000 grant 12/08/05 Vit Plant: Vit plant costs may top $10 billion 02/08/06 © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 71 Hanford News: Audit: Better coordination needed on research in radiation detection This story was published Saturday, March 4th, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The Department of Energy needs to better coordinate its research in radiation detection with the Department of Homeland Security, said an audit released Friday by the DOE inspector general. The audit looked at $104.6 million in research done at six DOE national laboratories in 2004, which included $44.6 million spent at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland. The Richland lab did $5.8 million in radiation detection research for DOE and $38.8 million for Homeland Security. "Neither (DOE) nor Homeland Security, which is responsible for integrating nuclear and radiological detection capabilities across federal agencies, had a complete inventory of relevant research being conducted at the national laboratories," the audit said. There was some ad hoc sharing of information, however. An inventory could help avoid duplication of research, direct scarce research dollars to the most promising technologies and allocate money to the national laboratory having the most expertise for the technology being studied, the report said. Historically, DOE managed most of the nation's nuclear detection work, but the Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred some of that responsibility to the Department of Homeland Security. DOE continues to be responsible for work such as developing technologies to detect radiation from nuclear bomb testing globally and monitor arms control treaties. One of PNNL's largest nuclear detection programs has been the Radiation Portal Monitoring Project, which has led to hundreds of radiation detection monitors being placed at border crossings seaports, airports and other mail and cargo facilities. The monitors screen vehicles and cargo coming into the nation for materials meant for radiological "dirty" bombs or other terrorist threats. It also has a program that tests more than 100 different personal radiation detectors and hand-held radiation survey meters under the conditions faced by those who respond to disasters. The information is compiled to help agencies, ranging from the Coast Guard to police offices, select equipment based on performance in the field, rather than manufacturers' claims. The lab is now working on an initiative to use its radiation expertise to make detection systems more sensitive. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 72 Hanford News: DOE seeks ideas for razing reactor This story was published Monday, March 6th, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The Department of Energy is asking the public for a second time what it should consider as it decides how Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility should be dismantled. DOE held a hearing on the matter in 2004. But now DOE has decided that a mandatory environmental study on razing the reactor should be rolled into a much larger study. That study is looking at the disposal of solid radioactive waste at Hanford, shipping waste off site and how to close Hanford's 149 leak-prone, single-shell tanks that have stored radioactive waste underground until it can be treated. It's fine for FFTF issues to be reconsidered, but hearings for the Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement later this month are not the place, said Pam Larsen, executive director of the Hanford Communities. She's afraid that when public hearings are held, particularly one planned in Seattle, the FFTF issue will distract from important decisions that need to be made about waste disposal at Hanford and closing the tanks. At past public hearings, Seattle residents have demanded the reactor be permanently shut down and Tri-City residents have pleaded for it to be saved. A restart of the reactor appears to no longer be an issue. After a bitterly fought battle by supporters to restart the reactor, DOE went ahead with a plan to destroy its core to drain liquid sodium. DOE considered that work part of a permanent shutdown. What's at issue now is how the reactor should be dismantled. "There was a lot of hand wringing" about whether to fold the FFTF environmental study into the larger environmental study, said Keith Klein, manager of Hanford's DOE Richland Operations Office, when the issue was raised by members of the Hanford Advisory Board in February. In 2005, the solid waste environmental study had been completed and work was progressing on separate studies on tank closure and dismantling FFTF. Plans changed after DOE learned that Pacific Northwest National Laboratory had quality control problems with groundwater information in the solid waste environmental study. The problem with the study was discovered during work on a lawsuit brought by the state to block DOE from bringing radioactive waste from elsewhere to Hanford. Some of it would be buried at Hanford, potentially affecting groundwater. DOE settled the suit in January, agreeing to redo the solid waste environmental study by combining it with the tank closure study. Both will lead to decisions on how much and where waste may remain in central Hanford after cleanup is completed. Since a draft of the FFTF study had yet to be completed, DOE decided to add it to the study, said Mary Beth Burandt, the environmental study document manager for Hanford's DOE Office of River Protection. The FFTF decision also will involve solid waste issues as DOE decides how much to tear down and how much of the reactor to dispose of in central Hanford. But because fuel and radioactive sodium will be removed from the reactor before it is dismantled, the decision on how to demolish it has very little environmental impact compared to other solid waste and tank decisions, Larsen said. Adding FFTF to the larger study "adds more confusion to the process," said Claude Oliver, the Benton County commissioner who led the unsuccessful fight to convince DOE to save the reactor to make isotopes for cancer treatments and to support research for the next generation of nuclear energy reactors. The reactor, which was DOE's most modern, was used from 1982 to 1992 for national and international research, including testing advanced nuclear fuels and nuclear power plant operating procedures. It also produced a large number of isotopes for medical and industrial users. For the last 13 years, DOE has had no use for the reactor that it considered economically viable. DOE is looking at two options for dismantling the reactor. DOE could entomb the reactor. Parts of the reactor above ground would be decontaminated and dismantled. Below-ground structures would be grouted and left in place. The second option calls for removing the entire structure and disposing of the waste created elsewhere at Hanford. DOE also is legally required to consider taking no action to dismantle the reactor. Public hearings are planned to hear concerns of the public, refine the issues the study should examine in detail and ensure that the document produced addresses the right issues to lead to a decision. The Tri-City hearing will be held at TRAC, 6600 Burden Blvd., Pasco, March 28. Participants may have informal discussions with officials from DOE and the Washington State Department of Ecology from 6 to 7 p.m. Formal presentations and comments begin at 7. Other meetings are planned in Seattle, Portland and Hood River. Comments also may be submitted in writing to Mary Beth Burandt, Document Manager, Office of River Protection, U.S. Department of Energy, P.O. Box 450, Mail Stop H6-60, Richland, Wash., 99352. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 73 Hanford News: State seeks to join Hanford suit This story was published Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The state of Washington has filed to join a Yakama Nation lawsuit against the Department of Energy over Hanford cleanup. The states of Washington and Oregon and tribes with historic ties to Hanford land want an assessment of harm to natural resources caused by the past production of plutonium at the Hanford nuclear reservation. If DOE will not do the assessment or otherwise cooperate, then the state of Washington wants a federal judge to require DOE to pay the state's costs of doing the assessment. "For the past few years, we have consistently requested that an injury assessment be conducted," said Lawrence Goldstein, of the Washington State Department of Ecology, in court documents. "DOE has consistently refused." It has refused to pay for data to be collected and also to even discuss potential injury to natural resources at Hanford, he said. Because Hanford is a federal Superfund cleanup site, DOE is required to assess how pollution at Hanford has affected plants, animals, ground water and the Columbia River. If damage remains after cleanup is completed, then states and tribes may file claims against the polluter, the federal government. "The intent behind the law is to look at the damage before figuring out the final remedy," said Elliott Furst, senior counsel for the Washington state Office of the Attorney General. DOE has said it's too soon to look at damages, with cleanup plans still being developed and cleanup continuing at Hanford. "We're saying that's the worst way to do it," Furst said. Knowing what harm has been caused is necessary to guide cleanup and prevent the state from having to pursue legal action later to get the site restored, he said. The Nez Perce Tribe filed with the state of Washington to join the lawsuit. "The tribe believes the DOE will not conduct or fund natural resource injury assessment studies at Hanford unless ordered to do so by a court," said Daniel Landeen, of the tribe's Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Department, in a court document. The lawsuit was brought by the Yakama Nation in 2002, but in recent years the matter has been in mediation. In late 2005, with little progress having been made in mediation, U.S. Judge Lonny Suko agreed to allow the case to go forward in court at the request of the Yakama Nation. Washington and Oregon notified DOE in 2004 that they planned to enter the lawsuit brought by the Yakama Nation. However, they agreed then to try to resolve differences outside of court and did not file to join the suit. Washington had expected a settlement offer, but did not receive one, Furst said. As a result, the state filed to join the case last week. Oregon has not filed to join the lawsuit, but could. Ken Niles, assistant director of the Oregon State Department of Energy, filed court documents last week in support of Washington. The Yakama Nation lawsuit covers not only Superfund law requirements covering harm to natural resources, but also requirements regarding cleanup. Washington and the Nez Perce Tribe have filed to join only one portion of the lawsuit related to the natural resources injury assessment. A ruling that the federal government is liable for costs related to doing the assessment will make getting funding for the work from the state Legislature easier, Furst said. However, the state's first choice remains for DOE to participate with other agencies in the assessment, he said. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 74 Paducah Sun: USEC won’t submit in-lieu-of fees - Paducah, Kentucky By Anne Thrower athrower@paducahsun.com 270.575.8653 Tuesday, March 07, 2006 USEC Inc. has notified McCracken County Judge-Executive Danny Orazine that the company does not have to pay the county in-lieu-of-taxes payments. When USEC Inc. took over operation of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in 1998, company officials made sure in the privatization agreement that the company would not have to pay property taxes or a fee. Orazine said he received a hand-delivered letter from plant manager Steve Penrod on Thursday, reminding the county of the arrangement. Orazine had hoped the county could come up with some fee arrangement with USEC. In-lieu-of payments — in which arranged fees are paid rather than property taxes — are made in more than 20 communities nationwide that have Department of Energy plants, County Administrator Steve Doolittle said in January. The plant is located on DOE property. USEC leases the 750-acre plant from DOE and enriches uranium for use in nuclear fuel. “I am not going to have an adversarial relationship with our largest employer, Orazine said. “They have been too good for our community. USEC officials could not be reached for comment on Monday. Orazine said he wants to seek another opinion, possibly through the Energy Communities Alliance, a group of community officials that have nuclear facilities in their areas. County commissioner Zana Renfro and Doolittle will travel to Washington, D.C., later this week to the meet with alliance members. The alliance includes officials from Oak Ridge, Tenn. McCracken County already has a fee arrangement with TVA for its Shawnee Fossil Plant, which provides electricity to the gaseous diffusion plant. The county receives about $700,000 annually from TVA, Orazine said, adding he´s never questioned how the agency calculates the fee, at TVA facilities. “We are just glad to get it, he said. Orazine said he was a little optimistic at first about a similar arrangement with USEC. And now, he says, he´s a little disappointed. Orazine said he´s not sure how much money a fee arrangement would have produced. But he said the money would not have been used for the general operating budget. Instead, the county would have earmarked the money for county parks and possibly the West McCracken Fire Department, the county fire department nearest the plant. USEC workers provide the county about $1 million annually from payroll taxes. The 1,100 workers provide about 20 percent of the revenue the county receives from payroll taxes. But that revenue source will start disappearing once the plant starts closing in 2010. Orazine said he believes the company will stay open past 2010. Meanwhile, Orazine still hopes the county will receive revenue from nickel stored at the plant. The value of the 9,710 tons of nickel stored in blocks ranges from $50 million to $150 million. For the nickel to be recycled, DOE must first lift a five-year, safety-related ban on removing contaminated scrap metal at any of its plants. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************